BERLIN : China and the United States are grappling with falling birth rates but Germany has bucked the trend with a rise in births nine months after its first pandemic lockdown, testimony to recent family-friendly policies and higher migration. While data this month showed Chinese births fell 18% last year to their lowest since 1961 and the U.S. birth rate declined 4% to its weakest since 1979, births in Germany were down just 0.6%. IN VITRO GAINSWhile other European countries have seen their birth rates fall during the COVID-19 crisis - births in Italy plunged 21.6% in December - Germany's positive trend looks set to continue. After the Nazis awarded women with big families a "mother's cross", policies explicitly designed to raise the birth rate were long taboo. Germany then saw its birth rate collapse after unification in 1990 as women in the formerly Communist East put off pregnancy due to economic insecurity.

Source: Mint May 31, 2021 10:18 UTC