Identifying the effects of large catastrophic shocks on the distribution of births using a combination of Benford's...

This study examines the case of Romanian births, jointly distributed by age groups of mother and father, covering the period 1958-2022, under the potential influence of significant disruptors. Demographic shocks like armed conflicts, epidemics, floods, or slave trade are already present in the literature. Therefore, our study searches for the effects of World War II, the 1966 Anti-abortion Decree and COVID-19 shocks on birth distribution. Other legislative and political changes are not marginalized. Applying First Digit Law of Benford we search for anomalies in birth data. Then, following a vector-autoregressive method, we search for a long-term relation between fertility rate and anomaly in birth distribution. We also try to link disruptors and their potential effects as well. We found a statistically significant long term relation between fertility rate and birth distribution by age of parents. We confirm World War II as a major shock, and our results suggest adding the 1966 Anti-abortion Decree to the list of catastrophic events. The current work also reveals a time lag of 15 years between shock and its effects and a persistence of 15 to 20 years. COVID-19 does not impact (yet) the birth distribution by age of parents.