Frank Reanne, Wildsmith Elizabeth, Field Sam, Beltran Akanne Torres
The Ohio State University, United States.
Child Trends, United States.
SSM Popul Health. 2025 Jun 23;31:101831. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2025.101831. eCollection 2025 Sep.
The alarmingly disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the working age segment of the Hispanic/Latino population motivates our focus on determining whether the COVID-19 pandemic differentially impacted the fertility of Hispanic women compared to non-Hispanic White women.
Leveraging state-level birth count data, we perform an interrupted time-series (ITS) analysis using state-specific, piece-wise regression models to assess pandemic impacts on fertility across five different pre- and post-pandemic periods for U.S.-born Hispanic women, immigrant Hispanic women, and non-Hispanic white women. We present difference-in-differences (DiD) estimates to assess the impact of the pandemic on births to each group of women and difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) estimates to determine if U.S.-born or immigrant Hispanic women experienced more pronounced pandemic fertility impacts compared to their non-Hispanic White counterparts.
There was substantial variability in both pre- and post-pandemic fertility trends by state and population sub-group. We find that immigrant Hispanic women in nearly all states had fewer births than expected from March 2020 through February 2021, irrespective of pre-pandemic fertility trends. In contrast, non-Hispanic white women in most states experienced a "baby boomlet" from December 2020 through December 2022. U.S.-born Hispanic women have a more variable pattern during this period, with fewer births than expected in about half of the states, and a "baby boomlet" in the other half. Relative to non-Hispanic whites, however, both groups of Hispanic women experienced more pronounced depressive pandemic impacts on fertility at the height of the pandemic (December 2020-February 2021).
Mirroring disproportionate impacts on mortality, in the case of fertility, in nearly all states, foreign-born Hispanic Americans experienced pronounced and disproportionately negative impacts on births from December 2020 through February 2021, followed by a baby boomlet through December 2022. Establishing these patterns is a critical piece of a full accounting of the extent of the pandemic's influence on our country's demography, particularly how it has altered the population processes of such hard-hit sub-populations as Hispanic Americans.
新冠疫情对西班牙裔/拉丁裔劳动年龄人口产生了惊人的不成比例的影响，这促使我们专注于确定与非西班牙裔白人女性相比，新冠疫情对西班牙裔女性生育率的影响是否存在差异。
利用州一级的出生计数数据，我们使用特定州的分段回归模型进行中断时间序列（ITS）分析，以评估疫情对美国出生的西班牙裔女性、移民西班牙裔女性和非西班牙裔白人女性在五个不同的疫情前和疫情后时期的生育率的影响。我们提出差异中的差异（DiD）估计值，以评估疫情对每组女性生育的影响，并提出差异中的差异中的差异（DDD）估计值，以确定美国出生或移民的西班牙裔女性与非西班牙裔白人女性相比，是否经历了更明显的疫情生育率影响。
疫情前和疫情后的生育率趋势在州和人口亚组之间存在很大差异。我们发现，从2020年3月到2021年2月，几乎所有州的移民西班牙裔女性的出生人数都低于预期，无论疫情前的生育率趋势如何。相比之下，大多数州的非西班牙裔白人女性在2020年12月至2022年12月期间经历了一次“小婴儿潮”。在此期间，美国出生的西班牙裔女性的模式更为多变，约一半的州出生人数低于预期，另一半则出现“小婴儿潮”。然而，与非西班牙裔白人相比，两组西班牙裔女性在疫情高峰期（2020年12月至2021年2月）对生育率的疫情影响更为明显。
与对死亡率的不成比例影响类似，在生育率方面，几乎在所有州，外国出生的西班牙裔美国人在2020年12月至2021年2月期间对出生人数产生了明显且不成比例的负面影响，随后到2022年12月出现了一次小婴儿潮。确定这些模式是全面核算疫情对我国人口结构影响程度的关键部分，特别是它如何改变了像西班牙裔美国人这样受重创亚群体的人口过程。
