Last January, when we imagined witnessing a boom in births nine months after the start of the first confinement, it was finally an unprecedented drop in births that statisticians had recorded. The number of babies born in January 2020 had fallen by 13% compared to January 2020 (53,900 births were registered in France in January 2021, against 59,100 in January 2020). Since the end of December 2020, the negative impact of the pandemic began to be felt on births, and contrary to the expected increase, December had already been marked by a drop of 7%. But this decline did not ultimately continue over the months, and in July 2021 there were as many births as in July 2020, i.e. 2,120 births per day on averageannounces INSEE.
A still fragile balance
- In February, births started to rise again, while remaining significantly lower than those observed a year earlier (- 5% on average each day). These babies were mostly designed in May 2020, either during the last days of the spring containment period or upon release
- In March, births continued to increase and slightly exceeded those of March 2020 (+ 1%).
- In April, the increase continued (+ 4%). These babies were all designed after the spring 2020 containment.
- In May and June, births started to fall again: 1970 babies were born on average every day in May 2020 against 2010 in May 2020 (- 2%) and 2030 on average in June 2021 against 2060 in June 2020 (- 1% ).
- In July, they returned to their level of the previous year et even slightly exceed it: 65,900 compared to 65,700 in July 2020. These babies were mostly conceived in October 2020, before the second confinement.
Over the first seven months of the year 2021 (January-July), an average of 1,960 babies were born each day in France.
The health crisis has postponed baby plans
How can the slowdown in births at the start of the year be explained? On France Inter, Sylvie Le Minez, head of the demographic and social studies unit at INSEE explained that the climate of uncertainty linked to the Covid-19 health crisis can delay the plan to have children. Especially since the disease is scary, especially when it comes to babies. Another important element: the first confinement closed the doors of medically assisted reproduction centers. If the number of births has already been decreasing for several years, this figure is described as impressive by the Institute. In 2020, there was a 2.5% drop in babies born alive, compared to 2019. And we reached a total number of 735,000 births, the lowest since the post World War II period.
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