Exploring the impacts of COVID-19 on births in Italy, 2020−2022

Abstract

During the different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, conception trends in developed countries varied in profoundly different ways. Scholars have proposed a variety of explanations for these differences, often related to the particular socioeconomic context and social groups of a given nation, highlighting the need for country-specific, in-depth analyses. Italy was one of the countries where the number of conceptions resulting in a birth significantly decreased during the first wave of COVID-19 (March-May 2020) and again during April-August 2021. Italy also stands out for its great internal diversity, especially in the first wave of the pandemic. As individual data are not available, fully analysing all the possible causes of the variations in conceptions that occurred in Italy during the pandemic is not possible. However, using national monthly series on deaths, births, and induced abortions by age of mother, contraceptives' sales, and monthly data on births and deaths in the 107 provinces, we explore some Italian peculiarities. We speculate about the plausibility of some interpretations of the monthly fluctuations in conceptions and contraceptive sales, in particular on the effect of the forced separation between noncohabiting partners during the different types of lockdown and on the uncertainty that may have affected couples in the areas hardest hit by Covid-19 and during the first part of 2021.