Introduction

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, speculation about the short- and long-term demographic effects of the health crisis—and measures taken to mitigate it—dominated headlines globally. Experts debated potential scenarios, including both significant declines and significant increases in birth rates, disruptions in health care access and use, and declines in life expectancy, among other possibilities. Until recently, however, the evidence around the pandemic’s impact on key demographic indicators has been limited.
In the 2022 World Population Data Sheet’s special focus on COVID-19, we explore the recently available evidence on the pandemic’s effects on births and deaths around the world. Did the COVID-19 pandemic, and government responses that limited social interactions and movements, lead to more deaths? Did the pandemic shape access to health care, including family planning, or change couples’ fertility intentions in ways that increased or decreased births? Were all populations affected equally? Explore these questions to get a deeper understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Pandemic’s Influences on Fertility Are Mostly Limited and Temporary

The COVID-19 pandemic created much speculation about how it might impact fertility rates and factors influencing fertility, such as access to family planning and people’s intentions to have children. In the pandemic’s early days, when much was uncertain, this speculation anticipated a range of scenarios, from increases in births to decreases in births. The data now available show that the effects on fertility have, in fact, been generally limited.
Where an effect on fertility has been observed—primarily in high-income countries—it appears to be temporary. Data from countries such as Italy, Germany, and the United States demonstrate that births experienced a small decline in 2020 and rebounded or stabilized in 2021.
In low- and middle-income countries, data suggest the pandemic had little to no impact on fertility. Middle-income countries such as Costa Rica, South Africa, and Turkey, where births were declining prior to the pandemic, continued to follow a similar trajectory in 2020 and 2021.
These largely modest and temporary impacts on fertility suggest trends from prior to the pandemic will most likely continue.

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