Hi, thank for sharing these thoughts: this is fascinating, and, in tone far from the sensationalist claims and pieces elsewhere.
I find your hypothesis quite powerful, even though I think it will be quite tricky to find data that granular to see if the first vs. next-born hypothesis is actually borne out.
As to the deferred family planning, well, I'd suppose that many people would also defer this due to economic uncertainty, such as lockdowns (2020), furloughs (2020/21), decreased economic activity (ever since), and now the Ukraine-driven energy problems.
Very good! I particularly like that you used the Wayback machine to control for late reporting.
The only thing I object against is the claim that "publicly available data here is pretty good"... :)
For example, if you "haven’t yet found German data for vaccination by sex, with smaller age-bands, and by dose", it is because that data doesn't exist.
Data on divorce rates might also be of interest, but as far as I can see there are no figures for 2021 yet.
Excellent post. I wonder how permanent the "missing marriages" will be; I'd guess probably half will be made up over the next few years, and the rest will miss their chance for life.
People will literally come up with any theory (besides the vaccine of course) to try to explain away the numbers. What will they say when births are down 15-20% for the entire year? Probably global warming or some other nonsense.
Hi, thank for sharing these thoughts: this is fascinating, and, in tone far from the sensationalist claims and pieces elsewhere.
I find your hypothesis quite powerful, even though I think it will be quite tricky to find data that granular to see if the first vs. next-born hypothesis is actually borne out.
As to the deferred family planning, well, I'd suppose that many people would also defer this due to economic uncertainty, such as lockdowns (2020), furloughs (2020/21), decreased economic activity (ever since), and now the Ukraine-driven energy problems.
Keep this up!
"Until the first quarter of 2020 when it suddenly plummets"
Did you mean to say 2022?
I had not thought of this possible explanation. It makes a lot of sense, and seems to me very likely to be at least part of the explanation.
Very good! I particularly like that you used the Wayback machine to control for late reporting.
The only thing I object against is the claim that "publicly available data here is pretty good"... :)
For example, if you "haven’t yet found German data for vaccination by sex, with smaller age-bands, and by dose", it is because that data doesn't exist.
Data on divorce rates might also be of interest, but as far as I can see there are no figures for 2021 yet.
Excellent post. I wonder how permanent the "missing marriages" will be; I'd guess probably half will be made up over the next few years, and the rest will miss their chance for life.
People will literally come up with any theory (besides the vaccine of course) to try to explain away the numbers. What will they say when births are down 15-20% for the entire year? Probably global warming or some other nonsense.