Elizabeth Gregory
In 2021, per the CDC , the US birth rate rose nationally by 1% — from 56 births / 1,000 fertile women (those 15 to 44 years old) to 56.6 births , regaining some of the 4% loss in 2020 .
2020 . Among 2020 births only those in December (babies conceived in March) would be directly affected by Covid-19. That would have been a pretty big quarantine effect if the decline were all due to Covid (though certainly a rise in abortions and/or miscarriages due to Covid-19 could also have played in). Instead, the 2020 decline seems to be largely an ongoing effect of the decline underway since 2007 (-19.2% 2007-2020).
2021 . The recently released 2021 data reveals that the 13-year fairly steady decline in births (this was the first rise since 2014) was curtailed in the remainder of 2020 and the first part of 2021, though we can’t yet tell how that maps onto the pandemic (it would be nice to see the data broken out by month). But the 2021 rise was small, especially relative to the 4% decline the year prior.
Elizabeth Gregory