Page 82 - IJPS-10-3

International Journal of
Population Studies COVID-19 and fertility in Costa Rica

low-SES communities—counterbalances the drastic Acknowledgments
deceleration in fertility decline in these groups. Fertility
rates even increased for third- or higher-order birth The author would like to thank the Tribunal Supremo de
or in late 2021 and 2022. This baby boom could be a Elecciones for providing access to the micro-databases.
consequence of the reduced access to contraception Funding
(unwanted pregnancies) or volitional decisions triggered
or not by the pandemic. However, there is no data in Costa None.
Rica to test this plausible hypothesis.
Conflict of interest
The anomalous reduction in births to foreign-born
mothers in 2020 (an 11% reduction compared to a 1% The author declares no conflict of interest.
decline in the previous year) can be peculiarly linked to Author contributions
the pandemic. However, this reduction is not caused by the
pandemic-induced childbearing decisions, since mothers This is a single-authored article.
were already pregnant at the onset of the pandemic Ethics approval and consent to participate
in April. It likely stemmed from pandemic-motivated
migration decisions of the immigrants to flee Costa Rica Not applicable.
due to lack of jobs or fear of COVID-19. A similar baby
bust from foreign-born mothers was also observed in the Consent for publication
United States in 2020, which has been attributed to reduced Not applicable.
immigration of pregnant women (Bailey, Currie et al.,
2023, Kearney & Levine 2023). This strand of explanation, Availability of data
however, is hardly applicable to the context in Costa Rica The micro-databases provided by the Tribunal Supremo de
since there is no evidence of important inflows of pregnant Elecciones (TSE) cannot be made public for safeguarding
immigrants. subject anonymity (Costa Rican Law N. 9694). TSE granted

5. Conclusions the University of Costa Rica the access to these databases
for research purposes only. Other organizations that have
The 1-month nosedive in childbearing at the onset of signed inter-institutional agreements could access the
the pandemic seems to be a response to hardships in micro-databases maintained by TSE. The aggregated data
conjunction with the measures initially imposed to by month are presented in the Supplementary File.
contain the disease and to uncertainties and fears related
to a new menace. This decrease was not a physiological References
response to COVID-19 (the number of cases and deaths Aassve, A., Cavalli N., Mencarini, L., Plach, S., & Livi
were still minuscule in April 2020) but a response to Bacci, M. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic and human
psychosocial and economic factors. It has previously fertility. Science, 369(6502):370-371.
been determined that the duration between September https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc9520
and November 2020 accounted for the most numbers
of incidence, hospitalization, and deaths during the first Aassve, A., Cavalli, N., Mencarini, L., Plach, S., & Sanders, S.
pandemic wave (Rosero-Bixby & Jiménez-Fontana 2021). (2021). Early assessment of the relationship between the
COVID-19 pandemic and births in high-income countries.
By the same logic, if these challenges had significantly Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
influenced the childbearing decisions, the 2021 birth 118(36):e2105709118.
count reduction should have been sharper in the third
quarter, which is however not portrayed in the data. In https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2105709118
the same vein, the additional severe waves of the Delta Bailey, M.J., Bart, L., & Lang, V.W. (2022). The missing baby
and Omicron variants were not associated with baby busts bust: The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for
9 months later in 2022. Whether the pandemic-related contraceptive use, pregnancy, and childbirth among low-
deceleration in fertility was caused by the pandemic income women. Population Research and Policy Review,
or by other circumstances remains to be elucidated. 41(4):1549-1569.
Nevertheless, given the current findings, we conclude with https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-022-09703-9
an interesting insight that the pandemic may indirectly Bailey, M.J., Currie, J., & Schwandt, H. (2023). The COVID-19
reduce the immigrant population and correspondingly baby bump in the United States. Proceedings of the National
curtail the number of births. Academy of Sciences, 120(34):e2222075120.

Volume 10 Issue 3 (2024) 76 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.1310