Did the 1918 influenza pandemic cause a 1920 baby boom? Demographic evidence from neutral Europe
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In 1919–20, the European countries that were neutral in the First World War saw a small baby bust followed by a small baby boom. The sparse literature on this topic attributes the 1919 bust to individuals postponing conceptions during the peak of the 1918–20 influenza pandemic and the 1920 boom to recuperation of those conceptions.
In a newly published article in Population Studies, Hampton Gaddy & Mathias M. Ingholt, using data from six large neutral countries of Europe, present novel evidence contradicting that narrative. In fact, the subnational populations and maternal birth cohorts whose fertility was initially hit hardest by the pandemic were still experiencing below-average fertility in 1920.
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