Love in the time of coronavirus – fake news or serious statistics?

There has been a spike in excitable articles forecasting a baby boom as the coronavirus makes couples spend more time with each other with ‘nothing else to do’. It is the only spike that we are likely to see. Instead, as far as the birth rate is concerned, I would expect to see a depression.
Whenever some crisis or disaster occurs that keeps people at home, especially one that puts the lights out, the media expect an explosion of fecundity. In the developed world, these stories mostly seem to come from the United States, the home of fake news: the power outage in New York in 1965, the aftermath of 9/11, power outages in 2003, 2013 among others. None can be shown to have yielded an excess of births nine months later when the data are scrutinised scientifically despite the excited, lubricious assertions of the popular press.
The reasons are obvious. In rich countries these blackouts only last for a night or two. Most couples practice regular contraception. Some of these events inspire fear and depression, not lust. Even among young healthy sexually active couples, the monthly probability of conception is only between 15 and 25%. Women are only fecund for about two days in each cycle and, with other factors (many very early pregnancies naturally abort) it take on average 5 to 10 months of regular sex to become pregnant. A lot of unplanned pregnancies happen to teenagers. They are now less free to roam about and one cannot get pregnant through Facebook.

It would not do to be too dogmatic. This long-term shutdown in developed economies has no precedent. In Britain there are about a quarter of a million abortions per year. How many are possible now? Contraceptives may be in short supply; most condoms are made in Malaysia and – paradoxically – China, where the problem started in the first place. On the other hand prudent couples will not risk conception when faced with open-ended uncertainty, unemployment and impoverishment.
Things are a bit different in the developing world where contraception is more erratic and where power loss can last for months. A careful study by the LSE, for example, showed that there was a small (4%) increase in the birth rate following protracted power shortages in Colombia. But that was no laughing matter; the pregnancies were unintended and the outcomes for mothers not good.
There have been well recorded baby booms in rich countries with good records, but for other reasons. The most dramatic but short-lived spikes were those following the First and the Second World Wars, centred on 1919 and 1947 respectively, as millions of soldiers returned home after years of separation, with home comforts in mind. Remember those envelopes allegedly marked NORWICH. Births peaked at 881,000 in 1947, from 614,000 in 1936. Births then calmed down until the period 1953-1973 when there was a more gradual rise to about the same peak for completely different, socio-economic reasons.
A more brutal example was given in Communist Romania in the 1960s. The natural reaction of the people living under the dire conditions of communist collectivisation was to have fewer children, as usual unacceptable in dictatorships. Dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu decreed that easy access to legal abortion, the front-line method of birth control in most of the post-war communist states, be withdrawn at short notice. Contraception was illegal. The result was a doubling of the birth rate in one year, from 274,000 in 1966 to 528,000 in 1967, the most rapid rise in peacetime ever recorded. Most of these births were unwanted and many – estimated at 500,000 – ended up in the notorious orphanages.
It may be that in the time of the coronavirus that the thoughts of men and women turn lightly to love and sex, especially as Spring is upon us. But I doubt it, or even that any effect would be measurable through the statistical fuzziness. Forecasting is particularly difficult here because of the unusual duration of the shutdown in developed societies. Most likely worries about isolation, employment, cash flow and supplies of dog food will depress spirits. But who knows? Maybe when it is all over we may permit ourselves a brief moment of rejoicing.

David Coleman 8 April 2020.