Births in Germany fell sharply in January 2023

A vaccination and "German Angst" phenomenon

Destatis, the German statistical authority, has finally delivered birth figures for December 2022 and January 2023 after a 2.5 months reporting pause. The year 2022 closed with a total of -6.7% (-44,000) compared to the period 2016-2021. January 2023 falls out of this range at -19.1%. At least since the reunification in 1990, no other year has seen so few births in a January.

From 2016 to 2021, births in Germany followed a seasonal pattern with an almost constant trend. The average course over this period was determined and used to calculate a forecast for 2022 and 2023 (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Monthly births in Germany with fit (time series linear model, light blue), forecast (blue) and 95% CI (light blue).

The actual values deviated only slightly from the fit during the comparison period. Since January 2022, however, they have been mostly below the 95% confidence interval of the forecast, indicating statistical significance.

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Percentage deviations of births by month

Tab. 1: Percentage monthly deviations from the forecasted values. The fields are colored according to the strength of the deviation along a color scale (red-orange-yellow-green).

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The deviations (Tab. 1) show a temporal relationship with the C19 vaccination campaign (Fig. 2). Taking into account a 9-month time lag, it can be seen that the two events started simultaneously. A statistically significant negative rank correlation is calculated for the period September 2021 to December 2022 (Spearman's 𝜌 = -0.59, p = 0.008).

Fig. 2: Temporal relationship of relative birth decline and C19 vaccination rate in the younger-60 age cohort. Vaccination rates are expressed in doses / (population * month).

Apart from these statistical studies, there are considerable biomedical reasons for an association between C19 vaccination and fertility reductions. It is still unclear how long this reduction lasts and in what proportion it is distributed among men and women. From the standpoint of pathology, no body organ is exempt from vaccine-induced tissue damage, as Prof. Arne Burkard summarizes in this lecture. So also no gender can be exempted. He concludes with these meaningful words,

"If I were a woman in fertile age, I would not plan a motherhood from a person, from a man, who has been vaccinated."

This not only holds for Germany. Similar developments can be observed in many other countries. Current charts of birth rates in European countries can be found here. Sweden in particular, which I examined in more detail here, showed a similar trajectory to Germany up to the end of 2022. However, the decline at the beginning of 2023 was not as sharp.

The drastic drop in January 2023 is probably related to socio-economic influences rather than medical complications. The corresponding month of conception was in the period after the outbreak of the Ukrainean war. As a result of the Russia sanctions, energy prices in Germany skyrocketed. The money supply had already been expanded alarmingly long before by the European Central Bank. High rates of inflation occurred along with an increase in prime and mortgage rates. The real estate market has also been on the move. Planned building projects were canceled or postponed and building requests declined.

Thus, after vaccination, another negative factor influencing births has probably occured. Fears of war, inflation and an uncertain economic future are not the kind of milieu that favors family planning, especially in the country of "German Angst". However, a German proverb says, "Angst ist ein schlechter Ratgeber" (Fear is a bad advisor). Apparently, Swedes follow this German saying rather than Germans.

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