Volume 43 - Article 47 | Pages 1399–1412
The impact of COVID-19 on fertility plans in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom
| Date received: | 12 May 2020 |
| Date published: | 01 Dec 2020 |
| Word count: | 2492 |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, crisis, Europe, fertility plans |
| DOI: | 10.4054/DemRes.2020.43.47 |
Abstract
Objective: This study offers a descriptive overview of changes in fertility plans during the COVID-19 crisis in a sample of the young population (18–34) in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The data were collected between 27 March and 7 April 2020.
Results: Our results show that fertility plans have been negatively revised in all countries, but not in the same way. In Germany and France fertility plans changed moderately, with many people still planning or postponing their decision to have a child. In Italy, however, the proportion of abandoners is much higher than in the other countries, and the proportion of those deciding to postpone their plans is lower. Moreover, across countries the demographic characteristics of individuals appear to be associated with fertility plans in different ways. In Italy, abandoners are common among individuals younger than 30 and those without a tertiary education. In Germany, abandoners are slightly more prevalent in the regions most affected by COVID-19. In the United Kingdom, the individuals that most frequently abandoned their fertility plans are those who expect the crisis to have a dramatic negative effect on their future income. Finally, in France and Spain we do not observe a clear pattern of revision of fertility plans.
Contribution: These results suggest that different mechanisms are at work, possibly due to the different economic, demographic, and policy pre-crisis background and post-crisis prospects. Low-fertility contexts in particular appear to be more at risk of a fertility loss due to the crisis.
Author's Affiliation
Francesca Luppi - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
Bruno Arpino - Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Alessandro Rosina - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research
»
The association between childlessness and voting turnout in 38 countries
Volume 47 - Article 14
»
Time preferences and fertility: Evidence from Italy
Volume 44 - Article 50
»
Life after death: Widowhood and volunteering gendered pathways among older adults
Volume 43 - Article 21
»
Childcare arrangements and working mothers’ satisfaction with work‒family balance
Volume 42 - Article 19
»
Traditional versus Facebook-based surveys: Evaluation of biases in self-reported demographic and psychometric information
Volume 42 - Article 5
»
Family histories and the demography of grandparenthood
Volume 39 - Article 42
»
Parents’ subjective well-being after their first child and declining fertility expectations
Volume 39 - Article 9
»
Navigating between two cultures: Immigrants' gender attitudes toward working women
Volume 38 - Article 35
»
The effect of the Great Recession on permanent childlessness in Italy
Volume 37 - Article 20
»
Who brings home the bacon? The influence of context on partners' contributions to the household income
Volume 35 - Article 41
»
Grandparenting and mothers’ labour force participation: A comparative analysis using the Generations and Gender Survey
Volume 27 - Article 3
»
Lowest-Low Fertility: Signs of a recovery in Italy?
Volume 21 - Article 23
»
Intergenerational family ties and the diffusion of cohabitation in Italy
Volume 16 - Article 14
»
Interdependence between sexual debut and church attendance in Italy
Volume 14 - Article 19
»
Is marriage losing its centrality in Italy?
Volume 11 - Article 6
Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research
»
Differential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on excess mortality and life expectancy loss within the Hispanic population
Volume 48 - Article 12 | Keywords: COVID-19
»
The sex preference for children in Europe: Children’s sex and the probability and timing of births
Volume 48 - Article 8 | Keywords: Europe
»
Solo living in the process of transitioning to adulthood in Europe: The role of socioeconomic background
Volume 48 - Article 3 | Keywords: Europe
»
Educational selectivity of native and foreign-born internal migrants in Europe
Volume 47 - Article 34 | Keywords: Europe
»
The COVID-19 pandemic’s unequal socioeconomic impacts on minority groups in the United States
Volume 47 - Article 33 | Keywords: COVID-19
Articles
Citations
Cited References: 19
»View the references of this article
Download to Citation Manager
Similar Articles
PubMed
»Articles by Alessandro Rosina
Google Scholar
»Articles by Alessandro Rosina