Status: 09/20/2022 10:12 a.m
In the first months of 2022, the number of births in Germany fell significantly. According to a study, the corona vaccination campaign plays a role in this. It led to women postponing their desire to have children.
The birth rate in Germany has fallen significantly since the beginning of the year. While the value fluctuated between 1.5 and 1.6 children per woman from 2015 to 2021, it fell to 1.3 to 1.4 at the beginning of 2022. This corresponds to a decrease of more than ten percent compared to the years before the pandemic. This emerges from a study published by the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) in Wiesbaden.
A major reason for the decline is that women initially put off their desire to have children when the corona vaccination campaign started in spring 2021: “It is plausible that some women wanted to be vaccinated before they became pregnant,” said Martin Bujard, Research director at the BiB. “Since the vaccination was initially not recommended for pregnant women, the desire to have children was often postponed.”
More births since May
In May 2022, according to the information, there were signs of a slight recovery in the birth rate. It climbed to 1.48, which could indicate an end to this delay. The development of births in the coming months is still unclear, said Bujard.
Germany is not alone with the severe slump. A decline was also observed in Scandinavia over the same period, as the international study shows. In Sweden, for example, the birth rate fell from around 1.7 (2021) to 1.5 to 1.6. According to Bujard, the corona pandemic has also had “considerable effects on short-term birth patterns” in other European countries.