2008 financial crisis vs 2020 economic fallout: How COVID-19 might influence fertility treatment and live births
Abstract
Background
The economic and reproductive medicine response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has reduced the affordability and accessibility of fertility care. We sought to determine the impact of the 2008 financial recession and the COVID-19 recession on fertility treatments and cumulative live-births.
Methods
We examined annual US natality, CDC IVF cycle activity and live birth data from 1999 to 2018 encompassing 3,286,349 treatment cycles, to estimate the age-stratified reduction in IVF cycles undertaken after the 2008 financial recession, with forward quantitative modelling of IVF cycle activity and cumulative live-births for 2020 to 2023.
Results
The financial recession of 2008 caused a four-year plateau in fertility treatments with a predicted 53,026 (95% CI 49,581 to 56,471) fewer IVF cycles and 16,872 (95% CI 16,713 to 17,031) fewer live births. A similar scale of economic recession would cause 67,386 (95% CI: 61,686 to 73,086) fewer IVF cycles between 2020 and 2023, with women younger than 35 years overall undertaking 22,504 (95% CI 14,320 to 30,690) fewer cycles, as compared to 4,445 (95% CI 3,144 to 5749) fewer cycles in women over the age of 40 years. This equates to overall 25,143 (95% CI: 22,408 to 27,877) fewer predicted live-births from IVF, of which only 490 (95% CI 381 to 601) are anticipated to occur in women over the age of 40 years.
Conclusions
The COVID-19 recession could have a profound impact on US IVF live-birth rates in young women, further aggravating pre-existing declines in total fertility rates.
Trial registration number
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