The Covid pandemic has had multiple and unexpected effects. One of them is the disparate variation in the birth rate in the US according to the origin of the mothers. While the closure of borders caused the birth rate in the US among women born in China to plummet sharply and has not recovered, the birth rate among women born in Latin America—after falling, albeit much less, in 2020—showed an impressive recovery last year: by December 2021, it reflected a positive trend of 11% compared to the trend for the period 2015-2019, as can be seen in the Latinometrics graph. 

According to a detailed study by three American researchers published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private non-profit organization, this trend may be related to the economic aid provided by the U.S. government to combat the effects of the pandemic (a recovery, albeit smaller, is also observed in the birth rate trend among women born in the US). A possible message? That, given the right conditions, many women want to be mothers.

The birth rate in the US among women born in China, on the other hand, remains well below the 2015-2019 trend, reflecting the closure of China's borders for much longer than the rest of the world.