The Decomposition of Birth Fluctuation in China Since The COVID-19 Pandemic

Cuiling Zhang, China Population and development Research Center
Ting Feng, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Zhenzhen Zheng, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

The severity of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the disease burden of the pandemic, the degree of socio-economic impact of its spread and control, and the public's perception of health risks differ, the duration of exposure to the epidemic has varied, and as a result, births in countries across regions have fluctuated in different patterns. By using the birth registration data of China, we captured the continuing decline and without compensatory baby boom in China. With the decomposition results demonstrating, in 2020 and 2022, the contribution of age structure factors of women reached 1.09 million and 820,000 respectively, especially in 2022, which could explain about 80% of the birth decline in that year. In 2020 and 2021, the decline in the proportion of women with spouses contributed 1 million and 1.02 million respectively to the birth drop, both exceeding the contribution of the decline in the marital fertility rate in the same year, and the contribution in 2021 exceeded 70%. In 2020 and 2021, the contribution of the decline in marital fertility rate was 560,000 and 220,000 respectively, and the total contribution rate of the two years to the decline in birth population was less than 20%.

Keywords: Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, Decomposition analysis, Fertility, Population, Shocks and Pandemics

See paper.