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.
Thanks very much! I took a lot of inspiration from your posts and how you break down and share the data from Norway.
I agree that economic uncertainty is overall a big factor, but in the post above I was trying to point out there was no sudden jump in economic uncertainty in Q2 2021 that could have explained a sudden fall in births Q1 2022.
It is of course a combination of factors but I am trying to focus on the concrete marriages data as an Ockam's razor type of argument against the alarmism of the alternative vax explanation.
I told my wife about your hypothesis, too, and she quipped: 'there's not that many people who wait to get married before having children.'
I fear that she's quite right, even though I'm quite certain that having parties before getting down to making babies is a thing outside 'traditional marriage', hence your argument still holds quite some water, I think.
EDIT: thanks for being extra-kind in terms of inspiration; I'm happy you find my postings informative!
Me too, I really wasn't expecting to see such a huge drop in marriages.
And I am still struggling with the timing, i.e. that the delayed affect doesn't appear until Q1 2022.
I think the key is to get the breakdown of the births from 2021-22. I am expecting them to skew heavily to 2nd, 3rd child etc. and to see a big drop in first borns.
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.
I am trying in good faith to explore possible explanations for this anomalous phenomenon. IMHO some will literally attribute any phenomenon to the vaccines without doing the work to demonstrate the methods of action.
Jumping to conclusions and confirming strong biases doesn't help anyone.
Why do you think a highly vaccinated country like France has not seen any drop in births?
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!
Thanks very much! I took a lot of inspiration from your posts and how you break down and share the data from Norway.
I agree that economic uncertainty is overall a big factor, but in the post above I was trying to point out there was no sudden jump in economic uncertainty in Q2 2021 that could have explained a sudden fall in births Q1 2022.
It is of course a combination of factors but I am trying to focus on the concrete marriages data as an Ockam's razor type of argument against the alarmism of the alternative vax explanation.
I told my wife about your hypothesis, too, and she quipped: 'there's not that many people who wait to get married before having children.'
I fear that she's quite right, even though I'm quite certain that having parties before getting down to making babies is a thing outside 'traditional marriage', hence your argument still holds quite some water, I think.
EDIT: thanks for being extra-kind in terms of inspiration; I'm happy you find my postings informative!
It would be interesting if we saw a change in the marriage status of first time mothers.
"Until the first quarter of 2020 when it suddenly plummets"
Did you mean to say 2022?
Thank you! Corrected: births plummeted in 2022
(I mixed up Q2 2020 which was the fall in marriages)
In many countries, it's 2021 that is the outlier, with a rise in births.
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.
Me too, I really wasn't expecting to see such a huge drop in marriages.
And I am still struggling with the timing, i.e. that the delayed affect doesn't appear until Q1 2022.
I think the key is to get the breakdown of the births from 2021-22. I am expecting them to skew heavily to 2nd, 3rd child etc. and to see a big drop in first borns.
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.
Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I have to chuckle that I wrote that line, though I think I was referring more to the births data.
I have put in a request to get monthly data 2020-2022 with a breakdown of the first, second, third, etc births.
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.
Yes, I think there will remain a blip of "missing marriages" and "missing births" that will leave its indelible prints in many ways.
But a rise in the age of mothers could also contribute to a drop in fertility.
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.
Thank you for taking the time to read my writing.
I am trying in good faith to explore possible explanations for this anomalous phenomenon. IMHO some will literally attribute any phenomenon to the vaccines without doing the work to demonstrate the methods of action.
Jumping to conclusions and confirming strong biases doesn't help anyone.
Why do you think a highly vaccinated country like France has not seen any drop in births?