For all the jokes about couples getting busy on lockdown and creating a baby boom, the precise opposite appears to have happened in (as far as we can tell) all developed countries, and most middle income countries as well.
As the figures for births over Dec 2020 to Feb 2021 come in, they nearly always show a lot fewer babies being conceived since last spring.
It's not clear what is going to happen in the years ahead. Will the number of conceptions bounce back as people go ahead with pregnancies that they've delayed? Or will the return of restaurants and travel cause people to put the baby plans on the back burner for yet another year as they seek to catch up with the things they've missed out on? Or will continued uncertainty about the future make people less eager to have children?
There are certainly some interesting consequences we will need to look out for. Growing families tend to stimulate consumption, so we are about to see rather less of that. And if the 2020-2021 cohort turns out to be an unusually small one, that may have some interesting consequences right into the future (less competition for university entrance, graduate jobs etc.....) Long-term, obviously there are concerns about future dependency ratios, supporting pension systems and the like.
The surprising thing is that countries which handled the pandemic "well" like Taiwan and Australia seem to have seen similar declines in births compared with the countries that have done a poor job. Perhaps the decline in births is less to do with lockdown misery and more to do with a general sense of pessimism/uncertainty.
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/articles/provisionalbirthsinenglandandwales/latest (UK) also www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/01/07/britain-faces-baby-bust-covid-forces-birth-rate-record-low/
thebull.com.au/aussie-population-growth-hits-8%C2%BD-year-low-most-jobs-added-in-accommodation-food-services/ (Australia)
asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/Japan-s-pandemic-baby-bust-seen-pushing-births-below-800-000 (Japan)
www.forbes.com/sites/alicebroster/2021/02/03/coronavirus-hasnt-lead-to-the-baby-boom-that-was-anticipated-according-to-a-new-study/?sh=58bb1d954b79 (United States)
edition.cnn.com/2021/02/09/asia/china-population-births-intl-hnk/index.html (China)
www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/france-births-covid-lockdown/2021/02/10/285385ae-656c-11eb-bab8-707f8769d785_story.html (France)