Covid-19 Series: Covid-19 will lead to fewer babies and smaller families.

Alan Lovell

In most countries of the world, family sizes are getting smaller. Indeed, today’s fertility rate (the average number of children a woman will have over her lifetime) of 2.4 is half that of 1970. There are several factors behind this fall, including more women being in education and work, greater access to contraception and lower infant mortality. Many high income countries have even lower fertility rates, meaning that population sizes will fall and workers will have to support, through their taxes, more retired people.

What has any of this to do with covid? Well, the problem of low fertility rates is about to get worse: pandemics and other disasters, such as wars and famines, reduce fertility rates. To offset the impact of covid-19, governments will have to invest “pronatal” policies, which encourage the bearing of children. These include childcare and housing subsidies, improved parental leave and investment in day-care centres. But such policies are expensive, and most countries are massively in debt. How will this situation pan out. Will we see further drops in fertility across the world, or will other factors come into play?

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Dr Alan Lovell is a senior associate in the Health Policy and Clinical Evidence Practice. Alan has a degree in Biology from Royal Holloway, University of London, and gained his doctorate from the University of Warwick. He worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Sainte-Justine Hospital, University of Montreal before receiving an MA with distinction in Information Studies from the University of Brighton. Alan has advised and worked on a range of projects for governments, health ministries, academic journals, healthcare providers, insurers, research funders and sporting associations.