COVID-19, Fertility, and the Family

This panel facilitates research on the worldwide impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on fertility and family dynamics. While it is now well-understood that the initial response of the pandemic in high-income countries was to temporarily reduce birthrates, little else is known about the pandemic’s effect on fertility and the family. And even these initial findings contained unexpected heterogeneities of the Covid-19 pandemic on fertility dynamics across time, space, and social groups. The pandemic’s fertility response in low- and middle-income countries, its imprint on longer-term fertility behaviors, and its effect on more complex family dynamics are still unfolding and remain unclear.

Our panel aims at facilitating scientific advancements and the building of a research community on these themes. This includes encouraging research activities and scientific conferences, as well as facilitating debates on data infrastructure improvements and methodological approaches to assessing pandemic impacts.  The panel aims at supporting scientific progress on five major questions over the next few years:

1) What underlies the unexplained heterogeneities in the initial effect of the pandemic on birthrates?

2) What are initial effects on family dynamics beyond birthrates?

3) How will medium- and long-run effects of the pandemic on birthrates and family dynamics unfold?

4) How do pandemic impacts on fertility and family vary between the Global North and Global South?

5) Which methodological approaches have been used to study pandemic impacts on fertility and family dynamics, and what are their pros and cons?

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