This joint project with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock aims to analyse short- and longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the trends in the number of births and fertility rates in high-income countries with good quality of vital statistics data.

We will focus on the following issues:

• Monitoring impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on monthly birth trends. This includes a creation of a new open access database of Short-Term Fertility Fluctuations (STFF database), embedded in the Human Fertility Database
• Analysing short-term impact of COVID-19 pandemic on birth trends, fertility level and timing
• Analysing longer-term consequences of COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic disruptions and shocks on fertility
• Analysing joint impact of declining fertility, excess mortality and reduced migration on population trends, especially population decline and depopulation

We relate the indicators of pandemic severity, non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. reduced mobility, lockdowns and school closures), the vaccination drive, and their economic consequences to changes in birth and fertility rates. We consider short-term fertility shocks and estimate monthly trends in fertility rates across high-income countries. Furthermore, we study how longer-term fertility responses differ by age, birth order, education and migrant origin.