54 Time November 16, 2020
Society
Institution estimated that the U.S. would see
as many as 500,000 fewer births in 2021, a
13% drop from the 3.8 million babies born
in 2019. Telehealth clinic Nurx has seen a
50% jump in requests for birth control since
the beginning of the pandemic and a 40%
increase in requests for Plan B. A survey
from the Guttmacher Institute found that
34% of sexually active women in the U.S.
have decided either to delay getting preg-
nant or to have fewer children because of
concerns arising from COVID-19. Lower-
income women were most likely to want to
put off having a baby; that’s especially true
among Black and Latinx women, who have
suffered disproportionate income and job
losses this year.
On top of financial worries, the pan-
demic has plagued would-be mothers with
a host of other concerns, including hospi-
tal rules that might banish partners from
the delivery room and the risk of exposing
relatives to illness if they’re needed to pro-
vide childcare. And of course, parents are
worried about the health of the mother and
baby: The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention reported on Nov. 2 that preg-
nant women who contract the virus face an
increased risk of death and are more likely
than nonpregnant women to need inten-
sive care. Pregnant women with COVID-
19 also appear to be more likely to deliver
preterm. And Los Angeles County recently
reported the first COVID-19 cases in new-
borns in the U.S. Katie Hartman, 34, lives
in Florida, one of the states hardest hit by
the corona virus, and is considering a home
birth if she decides to get pregnant. “You
never know when another spike will come,
and it just seems wise to avoid the hospi-
tal,” she says.
The long-term impact of such delays
could be staggering. The U.S. fertility rate is the lowest it has been since 1985.
By 2034, Americans over age 65 are expected to outnumber those under 18
for the first time in U.S. history. Already, the country faces a severe dearth of
workers able to drive the economy and care for our aging population.
Demographers and women’s-rights advocates say the looming baby bust
is a damning indictment of the nation’s health care and childcare systems.
The U.S. is the only developed country that does not guarantee paid leave
to new parents, and it does not offer universal childcare or universal pre-K.
“COVID set off a bomb in the middle of these jerry- rigged ways of getting
by in this country that individual families had created,” says Emily Martin
of the National Women’s Law Center. “It’s no wonder parents don’t want
to deal with having a newborn right now.”
A July survey from the Mom Project, a startup that pairs mothers who
have dropped out of the workforce with new jobs, found that U.S. moms
are twice as likely as dads to leave their jobs in 2020 because of the strains
of juggling work and family care during the pan-
demic. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that
four times more women than men dropped out of
the workforce in September alone. Studies show
that women who leave the workplace, even for just
a year, suffer financial consequences for the rest of
their lives.
After decades of fighting for equal pay and op-
portunities in the workplace, women are once again
left with a choice: Have a career, or have a baby?Margaret Ogden, a 33-year-old lawyer in Rich-
mond, Va., had been waiting until her husband, a
doctor, finished residency before trying to get preg-
nant. She figured she could lean on her mother for