Although people are locked in their homes, the coronavirus blockade has not led to a baby boom in England and Wales, according to the latest figures, which show a small drop in conception rates in 2020.
In 2020, there were 817,515 pregnancies among women aged 15 to 44, a decline for the sixth consecutive year, albeit 0.4% less than in previous years, according to the National Statistics Office.
James Tucker, head of health and life event analysis at ONS, said: “While this could be expected to lead to a decline in births in 2021, provisional birth data show that births in 2021 are in fact have increased, but this varies throughout the year. “
He said that this is due to the fact that in the first half of 2021 there was a decline in births, all of which would have been conceived in 2020, when conceptions decreased, but in the second half of 2021 there was an increase in births related to conceptions in late 2020 and early 2021. This may suggest that people have postponed the birth of the baby until the initial shock of the pandemic.
Conception data are not yet available for 2021, but early data may show an increase in conception in the second year of the pandemic.
The figures also show that the conception rate is increasing for women aged 30 to 34, who had a record high of 248,528 conceptions in 2020 – a rate of 123.9 per 1,000 women. In 2020, all age groups aged 30 and over showed an increase in conception rates, for the first time in several years.
Conversely, the conception rate among teenagers continued to decline since 2007, falling to 13.1 conceptions per 1,000 women from 15.8 in 2019. All age groups under 30 had a decline in conception rates, with the most -a sharp decline was among those under 20, potentially due to a government program aimed at preventing teen pregnancy, launched in 2018.
For the first time in years, London did not have the highest conception rate. A 2.7% drop means he handed first place to the northwest, followed by the West Midlands, pushing the capital, where the cost of living is highest in the UK, to third place. Since 2009, the conception rate in London has decreased by 15%.
The share of conceptions leading to legal abortions increased for the sixth consecutive year and reached a quarter.
Demographers at the University of Southampton predict that the pandemic could reduce the birth rate of younger children without children due to a lack of socialization and economic insecurity. They suggest that this may increase the likelihood of older, more stable parents having additional children.
The impact of the pandemic on birth rates is difficult to predict because, although the baby boom is common after tragic events, such as the post-World War II baby boomer generation, periods of economic crisis such as the 2008 recession. are usually associated with baby busts due to tighter household finances and job losses.
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