Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland have all maintained their birthrates, and some are puzzled to find themselves in the midst of a pandemic baby boom
15 percent, and France saw the fewest babies born since World War II. Meanwhile, the Nordic countries—Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland—all have maintained their birthrates, and some are puzzled to find themselves in the midst of a pandemic baby boom.
Rúnarsdóttir and Savage hold their newborn as their cat, Annabella, roams nearby. So many babies were being born in Iceland in 2021 that midwives from other European countries were called in to assist in the hospitals.Like many Western nations, the Nordic countries have been in a fertility slump for decades. That’s partly due to postponed fertility, as prospective parents delayed starting a family, whether to focus on education, career building, or living independently, experts say.
Pregnancy yoga is one of the most popular classes at Auður Bjarnadottir’s studio in Reykjavik, Iceland. On a Thursday evening, Marta Karen Kristjönsdóttir leads a class of nine pregnant women while she, too, is pregnant with her first child, expected in February 2022.Based on the most recent prenatal scans, Hreiðarsdóttir estimates that Iceland may finish 2021 with 9 percent more births than normal.
More recently, Iceland was one of the worst-hit economies in the world in the aftermath of the Great Recession in 2008, when approximately 90 percent of the country’s economy collapsed. Yet births went up sharply. “Crisis seems to be the time when Icelanders increase their fertility,” says Anton Örn Karlsson, the head of demography at Iceland’s national statistics team.
Karlsson added that he and his wife had their daughter just before the Great Recession. “That was actually pretty helpful for us.” “The Nordic countries are coming from a decade of unexplained and unforeseen declines in fertility,” says Chiara Comolli, a postdoctoral researcher at the Stockholm University Demography Unit. The welfare state had been in place for decades, yet “despite these amazing policies, birth rates were declining.”
Sobotka says. When the crisis set in, parental leave was extended and the home care payment was increased by 30 percent. In the early 2000s, Iceland lengthened paid parental leave from six to nine months and dramatically expanded public childcare. Suvi Vallarén, of Helsinki, Finland, agreed. “We were planning on having a baby after a couple of years,” she wrote. “But when the lockdown came and all of our vacations were cancelled and my husband started working from home…we thought better now than later when we were tied to our home anyways.”
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