Why is Denmark going through a baby boom?
A boom year for births in Denmark has been partly attributed to lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last year was a busier one than usual at Danish maternity wards, with health authorities in Jutland and on Funen, as well as the Greater Copenhagen region, all registering a significant increase in births in 2021 compared to 2020.
The trend is apparent when viewed through the lens of the numbers of births at individual hospitals, broadcaster DR reports on Thursday.
At Kolding Hospital in southern Jutland, for example, 3,622 more babies were born in 2021 than in 2020, the broadcaster reports. That increase – 8.4 percent – represents almost a full extra month of births.
Figures from Statistics Denmark from the first nine months of 2021 show that it is likely to have the highest number of births since 2010, once data is complete.
A possible explanation for the increasing birth rate is the arrival of the generation born in the 1990s – also a period in which the birth rate was high in Denmark – at an age at which many want to start families.
“That’s the maths in it. There were more children 30 years ago, and they are the ones having children now,” Anne Uller, the senior midwife at Kolding Hospital, said to DR.
Meanwhile, experts at the University of Copenhagen have looked into a connection between increasing birth numbers and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Denmark could be experiencing a small baby boom because of the social safety net offered by the country’s welfare system, according to researcher Ayo Wahlberg, a professor at the university’s anthropology department.
“(In Denmark) we can be confident in starting families in secure circumstances,” Wahlberg told DR.
Most countries will eventually record a stagnation or decline in births once the pandemic is behind us, Wahlberg also said.
He argued that better options for parental leave while studying would help encourage people to have children in their twenties in Denmark, and thereby keep birth rates up.
“That’s the biggest barrier here,” he told DR.
READ ALSO: Denmark’s ‘corona babies’ struggle to adapt to kindergartens
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Last year was a busier one than usual at Danish maternity wards, with health authorities in Jutland and on Funen, as well as the Greater Copenhagen region, all registering a significant increase in births in 2021 compared to 2020.
The trend is apparent when viewed through the lens of the numbers of births at individual hospitals, broadcaster DR reports on Thursday.
At Kolding Hospital in southern Jutland, for example, 3,622 more babies were born in 2021 than in 2020, the broadcaster reports. That increase – 8.4 percent – represents almost a full extra month of births.
Figures from Statistics Denmark from the first nine months of 2021 show that it is likely to have the highest number of births since 2010, once data is complete.
A possible explanation for the increasing birth rate is the arrival of the generation born in the 1990s – also a period in which the birth rate was high in Denmark – at an age at which many want to start families.
“That’s the maths in it. There were more children 30 years ago, and they are the ones having children now,” Anne Uller, the senior midwife at Kolding Hospital, said to DR.
Meanwhile, experts at the University of Copenhagen have looked into a connection between increasing birth numbers and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Denmark could be experiencing a small baby boom because of the social safety net offered by the country’s welfare system, according to researcher Ayo Wahlberg, a professor at the university’s anthropology department.
“(In Denmark) we can be confident in starting families in secure circumstances,” Wahlberg told DR.
Most countries will eventually record a stagnation or decline in births once the pandemic is behind us, Wahlberg also said.
He argued that better options for parental leave while studying would help encourage people to have children in their twenties in Denmark, and thereby keep birth rates up.
“That’s the biggest barrier here,” he told DR.
READ ALSO: Denmark’s ‘corona babies’ struggle to adapt to kindergartens
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