Baby Bump or Baby Slump? COVID-19, Lockdowns, and their Effects on Births in Australia

This study examines changes in birth rates in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic and the extent to which such changes were influenced by lockdowns. We use natality data at State and small regional area levels spanning the period from 2011 to 2022. In our empirical approach, we first take advantage of a unique quasi-experimental setting that arose in Victoria, Australia's second most populous State, during the first year of the pandemic. Victoria imposed a 111-day stay-at-home lockdown while other States and Territories enforced milder restrictions on social and economic activities. We then exploit lockdowns that lasted more than three months in Victoria and New South Wales in the second year of the pandemic. Within these quasi-experimental settings, our empirical approach was to first use monthly data at the State-level and estimate birth rate deviations from secular trends for the months affected by COVID-19 policies. We also estimate separate models to examine variations in births across regional areas with different compositions of Indigenous population, unemployment, low-income, and non-English speaking residents. Our findings reveal a nationwide fertility increase in 2021, but Victoria exhibited slower growth, especially in areas with higher unemployment, lower income, and more non-English speaking residents. In 2022, we find evidence of a gradual return of birth rates to pre-pandemic trends, though this is mainly concentrated in the major cities. While the second-year lockdowns had limited impacts, language-diverse areas still mostly experienced lower rates of growth in birth rates.