Partial Fertility Recuperation in Spain Two Years After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Following the onset COVID-19 pandemic’s, a host of countries first saw drastic fertility declines and then a variety of fertility patterns afterwards. Yet, it remains unclear whether these initial baby busts have been recuperated, and if so, if the recuperation is equally distributed. We assess period fertility recuperation as the cumulative difference in observed fertility trends compared to a predicted counterfactual trend simulating fertility trends without the pandemic in Spain, the European country experiencing the most severe fertility decline of the pandemic. We use vital statistics on Spain and ARIMA models to forecast counterfactual trends in total and group-specific fertility rates for the month where fertility could be affected by the pandemic. By calculating the cumulative residual between modelled/forecasted trend and observed fertility rates, we can calculate fertility deficit and recuperation. By December 2021, Spain had only seen a partial recuperation of the fertility relative to expected trend with large heterogeneity. Births from mothers at the beginning and the end of the reproductive age and those transitioning to first child have not yet recuperated, whereas mother in the middle of the fertility window and higher order births have fully recuperated. We suggest a way to assess period fertility recuperation as the cumulative difference in observed fertility trends compared to a predicted counterfactual trend simulating fertility without the pandemic, and we show a lack of period fertility recuperation. If this translates into cohort fertility decline, there may be consequences for childlessness and population structure in Spain.