In a pandemic year like this, one of the many things we read is pregnancy. Suffice it to recall: Chrissy Teigen pregnant, Emma Roberts pregnant, Mandy Moore pregnant, Ashley Tisdale pregnant, Princess Eugenie pregnant, Elita Rudi pregnant, Arbana Osmani pregnant, Rose Leslie pregnant, Sara Hoxha pregnant, etc. and we close with Gigi Hadid, who has just become a mother . That said, it looks like everyone is in sweet anticipation.
In fact, it is no wonder pregnancy is contagious, at least not for high school friends. According to a 2014 American Sociological Review study (via Reuters), girls and women who have been high school friends are more likely to follow each other's example. In short, if your high school friend is in sweet anticipation, it is likely to influence your plans to become a parent as well. This is known as "social influence". Moreover, it is not unreasonable that locked up at home for days, many couples have rethought plans for children.
However, some important factors need to be considered. While it may seem like there are more and more pregnant women, in reality the odds are quite the opposite. A logical reason why we happen to hear about pregnancies is the fact that in the midst of all this socio-economic "clutter" and, above all, health, we tend to pay more attention to the good news of pregnancies and babies.
Taking similar situations in history as an example, we will most likely have a "baby bust" and not a "baby boom". What does this mean?
This means that the number of births will decrease. According to the Brookings Institution - an American research group founded in 1916 - the birth rate in developed countries declined after health and economic crises, such as the Great Depression, the Global Financial Crisis or the 1918 flu pandemic, known as the pandemic of Spanish flu. So this suggests that Covid-19 will have a much greater impact, as the health crisis has affected the economy as well.
Regarding the number of births in Albania, we will have to wait for the statistics of this end of the year or the beginning of 2021 (considering that the first infections and quarantine started in March). However, referring to the data of the Institute of Statistics for the second quarter, the number of births has decreased by 8% compared to the second quarter of 2019. This downward trend in births is observed since 2017.
