Volume 33 - Article 11 | Pages 313–326
The 1918 influenza pandemic and subsequent birth deficit in Japan
By Siddharth Chandra, Yan-Liang Yu
Abstract
Background: Recent research has documented fertility decline after the peak of pandemic-associated mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Yet the time interval between the mortality peak and the dip in fertility and its contributing mechanisms remains a line of debate.
Objective: This study examines the inter-temporal association between pandemic-associated mortality and subsequent birth deficit in Japan in order to shed light on the current debate about the impact of the 1918 influenza pandemic on human fertility.
Methods: Seasonally and trend-adjusted monthly data on deaths, births, and stillbirths in Japan are used to compute cross-correlations between deaths, births, and stillbirths.
Results: The analysis revealed a negative and statistically significant association between deaths (𝑑) at time 𝑡 and births (𝑏) at time 𝑡+9 (𝑟𝑑𝑏(9)=−.397,𝑝<.0001), indicating that excessive birth deficits occurred nine months after pandemic-associated mortality peaked. Additionally, there was a positive and high contemporaneous correlation between pandemic-associated stillbirths (𝑠) and excess mortality (𝑟𝑑𝑠(0)=.929,𝑝<.0001).
Conclusions: In contrast to earlier research that suggests that late first-trimester embryonic loss was the primary link between pandemic-associated mortality and future births, the findings of this paper suggest that a combination of reduced conceptions and embryonic losses during the first month of pregnancy were an important mechanism linking pandemic-associated mortality with subsequent depressed fertility.
Author’s Affiliation
- Siddharth Chandra - Michigan State University, United States of America EMAIL
- Yan-Liang Yu - Michigan State University, United States of America EMAIL
Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research
Neighbors’ social attitudes predict variations in live births among the Amish of Holmes County, Ohio, United States
Volume 53 - Article 25
| Keywords:
Amish,
diffusion,
fertility,
household,
proximity,
religion,
spatial analysis
Feminicide as a determinant of Mexican female life expectancy in the 21st century
Volume 53 - Article 24
| Keywords:
female life expectancy,
feminicide,
life expectancy,
Mexico,
mortality,
violence,
women
Online obituaries as a complementary source of data for mortality in Canada
Volume 53 - Article 22
| Keywords:
Canada,
computational demography,
digital traces,
mortality,
nowcasting,
online obituaries,
Quebec,
web scraping
Analysing migrant fertility using machine learning techniques: An application of random survival forest to longitudinal data from France
Volume 53 - Article 21
| Keywords:
fertility,
immigrants,
machine learning,
random survival forest,
survival analysis
The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis
Volume 53 - Article 10
| Keywords:
employment,
fertility,
immigrants,
multi-channel sequence analysis,
partnership,
United Kingdom
Cited References: 24
Download to Citation Manager
PubMed
Google Scholar