2020 COVID birth boom? In North Carolina, it’s a bust, baby

With the pandemic forcing many couples to spend lots of time together most of last year, some expected signs of a coronavirus baby boom.

But demographers report the opposite in North Carolina and nationally: a pandemic baby bust.

Birth rates in this state declined by 3.1% from 2019 to 2020, according to data compiled by Carolina Demography. Nationally, birth rates declined by 3.8%, the UNC-Chapel Hill researchers found.

As in all things about people, the reasons are likely complicated.

One contributor is very likely the recession, said Boone Turchi, associate professor of economics at UNC. When the economic situation gets tough, many people wait to have children.

“If you’re in a situation where the unemployment rates skyrocketed,” people can be reluctant to make the 18- to 20-year minimum commitment that children bring, Turchi said.

In April 2020, unemployment rates in North Carolina reached 13.5%. As of May 2021, nearly 165,000 jobs in North Carolina lost during the pandemic have yet to be recovered, according to data compiled by the North Carolina Justice Center.

It’s also relevant that both national and local birth rates have been steadily declining in recent years. In North Carolina birth rates decreased by 0.96% each year on average between 2015 and 2020.

What’s not known is whether the more sizable drop in 2020 is an acceleration of that trend or a pandemic-related shift that will be longer lasting, said Charles Becker, a Duke University research professor of economics.

It could become a long-term trend if other factors such as trouble in marriages or separations during the pandemic contribute to lower birth rates this year and later, Becker said.

Other factors not immediately associated with procreation, what Becker calls “iceberg” effects, could influence the numbers of birth announcements in coming years too.

“What hasn’t yet come to the surface in detail, is what the impact of the pandemic is going to be on mental health and cohabitation,” Becker said.

If those impacts are large, there could be long-term compounding effects, he said.

This story was originally published July 5, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "2020 COVID birth boom? In North Carolina, it’s a bust, baby."