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bne July 2020 Central Europe I 35
40% of their populations by the end of the century, through a combination of low birth rates and mass emigration to countries with better economic opportunities.
But couples cooped up inside together are only a small part of the story, and a study by academics from two Italian universities, Francesca Luppi, Bruno
It found that of the respondents planning to have a child back in January, an overwhelming majority had decided to either postpone or abandon their plans altogether. There were slightly higher percentages of people still planning to have a child in France
and Germany (32.03% and 30.71% respectively) than in Italy (25.56%), Spain (21.17%) and the UK (23.04%),
saying sales of vibrators, lingerie and adult board games had increased.
Meanwhile, data from Latvia’s Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) shows that just 465 marriages were registered in the Baltic state this May, around half as many as in May 2019. Obviously big weddings are out for now, but this is a further sign that people are putting off major life events during the crisis.
The policy response to the pandemic has been remarkably similar across the world – with notable exceptions like Turkmenistan, which continues to deny it has any cases at all – and a number of countries from Central and Southeast Europe adopted the same kinds of strict lockdowns as those in Italy and Spain. It’s reasonable to assume that behaviour under lockdown was similar to some extent.
However, the number of coronavirus infections and deaths have been lower in most Central and Southeast European countries (with notable exceptions such as Russia) than in Western Europe, perhaps giving more room for optimism about the future.
The report also showed significant differences between the five countries surveyed, which are also illuminating. “The huge proportion of people postponing or abandoning their fertility plans at least for 2020 – and in some cases indefinitely – seems to be driven by country-specific factors, which can
“A study found that populations under the coronavirus lockdown are more likely to postponefertility plans than start making babies”
Arpino and Alessandro Rosina, reveals that populations under the coronavirus lockdown are more likely to postpone fertility plans than start making babies.
Specifically, they find that the “effect
of the pandemic on fertility intentions is negative across Europe. Such consequences only exacerbate the effects of the Great Recession, as both crises have affected the fertility plans of the same generation.”
“At the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic there were hypotheses about whether the lockdown would result
in a new ‘baby boom’. However, one
of the consequences of this particular health emergency has been one of the most severe economic crises of the last century, with such events always being followed by a decline in fertility rates.
So it is not surprising that the first empirical evidence available does not support the possibility of a lockdown baby boom,” says a summary of the research published on the LSE’s EUROPP European Politics and Policy blog.
While the impact of health and economic crises on fertility plans differs across countries, “it is always strong and negative,” it adds.
The study is based on the analysis of data from a survey of 18 to 34-year-olds carried out in the last week of March and the first week of April in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.
with the latter three countries worse hit by the pandemic. In Italy, which at the time the survey began had by far the world's largest COVID-19 death toll, as many as 36.51% of respondents said they were abandoning their plans.
While the study uses samples from five West European countries, and not any from emerging Europe, the response of young people planning families from those five countries gives hints as to how the situation may evolve further east too.
We don’t yet have similar data to work with from the eastern part of the continent, though a survey by Aktualne. cz carried out early during the lockdown period found that only 6% of people said they were having more sex. It also quoted the Pink Elephant Sex shop as
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