| Popis: |
This note reports estimates of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on English fertility. It uses monthly data on the General Fertility Rate (GFR) over the period 2011-2021 to estimate dynamic models of the GFR, some of which include measures of men’s and women's unemployment rates. The models are used to generate monthly counterfactual fertility during 2020-21 from which the impact of the pandemic is inferred. The Covid pandemic had a very short-term depressing impact on fertility. It reduced conceptions sharply during the first wave of the pandemic (April 2020), affecting fertility in January 2021, but this was fully compensated for by a higher fertility during the last 10 months of 2021. It also appears that changes in unemployment rates played little role in these pandemic-related fertility movements. |
