There are also fewer babies born in Switzerland this year than last year. The downward trend continues across Europe – with three exceptions.
December 17, 2024 10:27December 17, 2024 14:38
Sabine Kuster, Mark Walter/ch media
Birth rates are falling – and not just in Switzerland.Image: Westend61
Once you have a baby, you are out. And not just in the short term. The latest birth statistics in Switzerland show that the birth rate will continue to decline in 2024, at least until September. This comes after tentative data showed that Swiss women would have even fewer children in 2024 than in 2023.
Although provisional figures are often as low as 6 percentage points, even taking this into account the decline is still slightly wider compared to 2018-2020.
Changes in birth rates began in late 2020, about nine months after the pandemic began. In most European countries, there was an initial tangle. This situation was particularly evident in Portugal, Spain and Italy, where the epidemic was already severe at the time.
In some countries with good security conditions, lockdown quarantine life will be followed by a small baby boom in 2021, such as Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Birth rates also recovered for a year in France and the Czech Republic.
Then the birth rate began to fall in a way it hadn't seen since the birth control pill breakthrough in the 1960s: almost everywhere – even in France, which has one of the highest birth rates, at 1.8 children per woman – Birth rates will begin to decline in mid-2019. -2022.
Just not in three countries, but in the three countries where the epidemic was most severe in 2020 and where the initial decline in the number of births was the largest: Italy, Spain and Portugal. This is not surprising since at least Italy and Spain rank at the bottom of Europe with 1.2 children per woman.
Photo and text: Watson
Other countries are approaching minimum values
Other European countries are now close to this low level: Germany, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom will have a birth rate of 1.4 by the end of 2023, and Switzerland and Austria will have a birth rate of 1.3.
The provisional data provide a glimpse of how things are going this year: Austria is stagnating and Switzerland is slipping further.
Picture: Watson
Many demographers have been scratching their heads over this. This isn't just a European phenomenon: birth rates have also fallen in Canada and Japan, although not as much. Even in South Korea, which has a record low fertility rate (0.8 children per woman), the number has now dropped further to 0.7. Only in the United States, the largest country in the West, does the epidemic or other crises appear to have had no impact on the relatively high birth rate of 1.6.
One explanation might be that the effect of inflation on birth rates in the United States is also shorter and smaller. A 2022 study in the United States pointed this out. Therefore, the impact of the war in Ukraine on the country is likely to be less. Ultimately, the differences with Europe cannot be conclusively explained.
Picture: Watson
Three Austrian demographers and lead author Maria Winkler-Dworak have once again examined the entire event in detail. The study was published in the journal Human Reproduction Open in September. They examined a variety of factors and found three that were associated with falling birth rates: Excess mortality had a small effect. Falling birth rates are most clearly correlated with inflation. The administration of the first dose of vaccination also stands out.
Beginning of vaccination leads to decline in birth rate
However, when it came to vaccination factors, the researchers found that within five months of starting vaccinations, the opposite was true: While the initial effect was negative, it increased as the number of people who completed vaccinations As the percentage increases, it becomes more positive. Basic immunization coverage has increased. The authors concluded: “This suggests that some women choose to delay pregnancy until vaccination is complete.”
The analysis did not show a direct effect of vaccination on fertility development. “In particular, conception rates in most countries start to fall very early in the vaccination process, when most women of childbearing age are not yet eligible for the first dose.” Then birth rates should fall by about the same amount in all countries.
However, inflation has yet to recover. This will have a significant impact on female fertility rates during the study period to the end of 2022, the authors wrote. Surprisingly, job losses had no impact, a fact that could be explained by labor market anomalies during the pandemic, which was also due to financial aid.
The current decline is not related to the pandemic
But is the ongoing decline really caused by the pandemic?
The Covid-19 pandemic “casts a long shadow over birth rates,” the authors write. For example, it also needs to be investigated whether finding a partner has become more difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic, which could affect birth rates in the longer term.
But as the pandemic abated, new crises and disruptions emerged, most notably Russia's war in Ukraine and the resulting rise in inflation and economic uncertainty, the authors write. “This has caused many of the countries studied to experience a new downturn in birth rates, which continues into 2023.”
Philippe Vanner, a demographer at the Institute of Demography and Socio-Economy at the University of Geneva, mentioned a year ago that the housing shortage may also be a reason why couples need more time to start a family. Long Covid may also be a factor for younger women.
People are also getting married less frequently than before the pandemic: about 37,800 people got married in 2023, about 7% less than in the years before the pandemic (2016 to 2019). In 2021, it dropped by 10%, and in 2020, it even dropped by 14%. (There may not be a drop in 2022 because same-sex couples can now marry and nearly 3,000 couples have taken advantage of this, and weddings in 2020 and 2021 may be rescheduled.) (aargauerzeitung.ch)
More information on the topic of birth rates:
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