The 2021 Baby Boom in Iceland: Exploring the Role of a Parental Leave Reform and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Total Fertility Rate in Iceland rose unexpectedly from 1.79 to 1.90. The increased number of births followed an important reform in the Icelandic paid parental leave scheme, which included an expansion of the leave from 10 to 12 months. Analysis of data from Statistics Iceland and focus group interviews with parents who had a child in 2021 were used to explore if and how the parental leave reform and the societal changes related to the pandemic-shaped parents’ decision to have a child in 2021. As the rise in fertility was short-lived, the results indicate that the baby boom of 2021 can hardly be explained by the parental leave reform. Rather, at least for educated women, who already had children and were in a good financial state, it seems that the pandemic created a favourable atmosphere for having a child. Parents’ narratives from the focus group interviews suggest that the pandemic might have been a good time to start or add to the family because of the increased time spent at home and the limited involvement in social activities outside the home.

Introduction

Fertility has decreased drastically across advanced, industrialised nations. Since the 1980s, an increasing number of countries have reached very low fertility levels (Caldwell & Schindlmayr, 2003) and virtually all societies have witnessed a “postponement” transition with an increasing proportion of births among “older” mothers (Kohler et al., 2002; Sobotka & Lutz, 2010). This change in tempo (timing of childbirth) and quantum (total number of children) has raised the concerns of policymakers about the long-term sustainability of the population. Iceland, a Nordic country that historically had high fertility levels in international comparison, is no exception. Fertility in Iceland has drastically declined during the past decade. In 2010, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was 2.22, while in 2020, it was down to an all-time low of 1.79 (Statistics Iceland, 2024). However, in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Iceland witnessed a handsome recuperation in the country’s fertility rate, when the TFR rose to 1.90. Interestingly, the increased number of births followed a reform to the Icelandic paid parental leave scheme which took effect in January 2021. The reform included an expansion of the leave from 10 to 12 months, with 6 months assigned to each parent. After the reform, the non-transferrable quota for each parent was 4.5 months. The rise in fertility that followed the parental leave reform resembles a development in the country at the beginning of the century when Iceland adopted a new law on paid parental leave, involving an extension of the leave from 6 to 9 months, of which 3 months for each parent were non-transferable—and fertility increased over an extended period afterwards (see Jónsson, 2018). The resemblance of these two developments (discussed in more detail below) calls for research on if and how the sudden rise in fertility could be associated with state policies providing increased support for parents with young children or whether there are other factors, specifically associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, that might shape the decision to have a child during the pandemic.

This article uses mixed methods to gain understanding of the fertility rise in 2021. By presenting findings from analysis of register data from Statistics Iceland, we will first seek answers to what characterises the rise in fertility during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iceland. Focus group interviews with parents who had a child in 2021 were then used to explore whether the rise in fertility might be related to (a) the parental leave reform and (b) societal changes that emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The article will provide new insights into what shapes people’s decisions on having children. Fertility research has historically mostly been based on quantitative methodology, and there is a need for a qualitative approach to understand the decision-making process underlying the choice to have a child. A mixed-method approach can provide a nuanced understanding of how events such as a temporary fertility boom can play out in a country-specific context and how particular circumstances may coincide with family policies and potentially shape decisions regarding the timing and number of children. Therefore, the mixed-method approach will accumulate knowledge on the subject matter and contribute to international scholarship on the impact of government policies and societal changes on fertility.

In what follows, we first discuss previous research that provides insight into how parental leave policy reforms and a pandemic, such as COVID-19, may potentially impact fertility and provide a description of the Icelandic context. We start the methods section by describing the register data from Statistics Iceland and the quantitative analysis, which is followed by a discussion on the qualitative data collection using focus group interviews. The results section contains three parts. First, we depict and report on the quantitative findings. Second, we turn our focus to the qualitative results, where we begin by discussing how the focus group participants viewed the parental leave reform. Third, we present findings on how they experienced social life during the pandemic. We end with a summary discussion of the main results and potential policy implications of our findings.

Tracing Changes in Fertility to Policy Reforms and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Countries in Europe and North America have experienced fundamental changes in fertility during the past five decades. Childbearing has been postponed, the number of children per woman has decreased, and childlessness has risen (Sobotka & Toulemon, 2008). These changes are accompanied by fundamental changes in attitudes towards gender roles, work, and parenting (Esping-Andersen & Billari, 2015; Goldscheider et al., 2015; Lesthaeghe, 2010). For several decades, scholars have suggested that women’s struggle to reconcile work and family responsibilities may be one cause of declining fertility rates in many countries. McDonald (2000) proposes that low fertility is associated with a combination of high levels of gender equality in the public sphere, such as in employment and education, and low levels of gender equality within the home. Therefore, public policies that aim to facilitate gender equality in the domestic sphere are of interest. Although public policies aimed at families with children rarely have the direct objective of increasing fertility, they may indirectly increase the number of births or affect the timing of childbirth by helping parents balance work and family life or reduce the costs of childrearing (Rindfuss & Choe, 2016; Thévenon, 2011). Paid parental leave for both parents is a prime example of public policies that can potentially create a balance between paid work outside the home and domestic work, and thereby promote fertility. However, research on how paid parental leave impacts fertility shows somewhat mixed results. In a recent systematic review of empirical studies that associate leave policies with fertility, Thomas et al. (2022) found that leave policy reforms do in fact have a positive impact on fertility, but only if parental leave benefits are generous.

Studies typically point to the Nordic countries as examples of countries that have placed strong emphasis on gender equality in the construction of their family policies, and that have achieved high fertility rates. The Nordic countries were forerunners in encouraging parental leave use of fathers with the introduction of non-transferable leave for fathers, the so-called fathers’ quotas, with high, income-related benefits. Nordic research indicates that encouraging the leave use of fathers may have a positive impact on fertility, as fathers’ use of parental leave for their first child is positively associated with the propensity to have a second child (Duvander & Andersson, 2006; Duvander et al., 2010, Duvander et al., 2019; Lappegård, 2009). Thus, policies that foster an equal division of care between partners may provide an incentive for parents to have more children. This could be the result of fathers gaining more interest in children, stemming from their experience of taking parental leave, or mothers’ eased burden of responsibility for the home, which may influence their childbearing decisions.

Although family policies may provide one explanation for variations in fertility across countries, it is also important to consider other social and economic factors. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered huge economic and social change, worldwide, and can, therefore, be seen as a natural experiment on how societal changes impact fertility. Most countries introduced some kind of rules on social distancing that had a severe impact on social relations in the public sphere but also within the home. At the onset of the pandemic, Aassve et al. (2020) proposed that in high-income countries, increased difficulties with balancing work and family life and economic uncertainty would reduce people’s intention to have a child. Interestingly, while this came to fruition in many high-income countries, others, most notably the Nordic countries, experienced a significant increase in births in 2021 compared to the years leading up to the pandemic (Sobotka et al., 2023). When attempting to explain the pandemic’s mixed effect on fertility, scholars have pointed out that the impact of sudden economic downturns and uncertainties on fertility depend on the policy environment (Jónsson, 2018). For example, Lappegård et al. (2023) suggested that the introduction of extensive government compensation, in Norway, reduced the negative economic and social impact of the pandemic on people’s lives, which may, in turn, have moderated the negative impact of economic uncertainty on fertility. Similarly, Nisén et al. (2022) suggest that institutional and cultural characteristics of the Nordic countries may have prevented fertility levels from dropping during times of crisis. Their study on the increase in fertility in Finland during 2020 and 2021 suggests that continued provision of out-of-home childcare and public economic support for unemployment or illness prevented a drop in fertility found in many other countries in Europe. Although the implementation of public policies may have reduced the negative impact of the pandemic on fertility, it does not explain the increase in Nordic countries’ fertility level. Thus, there may have been some perceived positive aspects of social life under the pandemic that favoured childbearing decisions. When speculating which mechanisms during the pandemic could influence childbearing, Berrington et al. (2022) proposed that increased time at home could encourage a new focus on home life. Having young children may prevent parents from attending social activities outside the home, and as it was difficult to participate in such activities during the pandemic, people may have viewed the pandemic as a good time to have a child. The authors also suggested that a group of people, especially the better off, would welcome a slower pace of life. Reduced time on work and commuting could lead people to re-evaluate their life priorities and decide to have children. Berrington’s et al. (2022) speculations were supported by results from an Italian survey. Italy witnessed a decline in the number of births, for a small but significant group of respondents the desire for parenthood increased during the first lockdown and some tried to conceive a child during that period. The reasons they gave were improved couple relationship quality and an emphasis on family values (Micelli et al., 2020). Thus, for some groups, it seems that the pandemic created a favourable atmosphere for having a child. However, existing research shows that this was not necessarily the case for all. In Norway, those who had a child during the height of the pandemic tended to be the more educated, have stable jobs, and have other children (Lappegård et al., 2023). It is likely that this group of individuals were not as hard hit by the pandemic as other groups in society.

Study Setting: Policies and Practices in Iceland During the Height of COVID-19

Iceland is a Nordic welfare state. The core of the Nordic welfare model is universalism, with the underlying assumption that every citizen should have an equal entitlement to a decent standard of living. Social policy is comprehensive and institutionalised, and the social security system is used to create income equality and equal living conditions for individuals and families (Esping-Andersen, 1990). However, Iceland has historically provided less support for families with children than the other Nordic countries, which can, for example, be seen in Iceland’s less expenditure on families with children, as a per cent of GDP (Nordic statistics, 2023). Historically, expenditure on unemployment has also been lower in Iceland than in the other Nordic countries, which can be explained by the low unemployment rate in Iceland, but also because of flat-rate benefits, when unemployment exceeds 3 months, while the other Nordic countries place greater emphasis on income replacement (Ólafsson, 2012). However, expenditure on unemployment rose greatly in 2020, at the onset of the pandemic (Nordic statistics, 2023), in line with rising unemployment and increased government support for the unemployed. In 2019, the unemployment rate for 25–64 years old was 3.0% but had risen to 5.8% in 2020. In 2021, the unemployment rate for this age group was 5.1%, but in 2022, it was down to 3.0%, as it had been before the pandemic (Statistics Iceland, 2024). Thus, the economic uncertainty associated with rising unemployment was only temporary.

A New Law on Paid Parental Leave

In Iceland, policy makers have strongly supported shared parenting as the ideal model for parenting. The emphasis on shared parenting is, for example, evident in the country’s law on paid parental leave. The current legislation is based on a law from the year 2000 which granted both parents an equal, non-transferable, right to paid parental leave, with the aim of ensuring that children have access to both parents and to help both parents combine work and family life (Act on maternity/paternity and parental leave, no. 95/2000). Working parents receive 80% of their income while on leave, up to a cap, while students and those that have not earned rights to the earnings-related benefits, by participation in the labour market, receive low flat-rate benefits. The equal, non-transferable rights have achieved worldwide attention, as the paternal rights are longer than seen in other countries, and the economic compensation is high by international standards (Koslowski et al., 2020). Non-transferability has proved to be successful in encouraging fathers’ use of leave, and most fathers have made use of their non-transferable period. However, the level of the cap on earnings-related benefits has been found to impact fathers’ leave use (Arnalds et al., 2021; Sigurðardóttir & Garðarsdóttir, 2018). Between the years 2008 and 2012, during a deep economic crisis, fathers’ average number of leave days dropped from 101 to 86 in accordance with the severe reduction in the maximum amount parents could receive while on paid parental leave (Directorate of Labour, 2022). As shown in Fig. 1, the lowering of the cap on benefits had a larger impact on fathers than mothers, as Iceland has not succeeded in closing the gender wage gap. The cap rose significantly in 2017 but has remained the same since 2019, resulting in a rise in the percentage of parents, and especially fathers, having salaried earnings above the cap on benefits.

Fig. 1.

Proportion of mothers and fathers in Iceland taking parental leave with income above the cap on parental leave benefits, 2005–2022.

Source: Directorate of Labour, 2022. * According to the Central Bank of Iceland's (2024) currency conversion rate on 26 August 2024 (one Euro equals 153 ISK)

In the period from 2003 to 2019, the total leave period was 9 months, with three non-transferable months for each parent. In December 2019, a bill was passed, granting parents who had a child from 1 January 2020, 10 months of paid parental leave, with a 4-month quota for each parent and the months that parents could divide as they saw fit were reduced from three to 2 months, resulting in a 10-month long leave. The Icelandic parliament also declared that in October 2020 a bill would be proposed that would lengthen the leave to 12 months, and a committee would use the time until then to reach an agreement on the division (Act on changes on the Act on maternity/paternity and parental leave, no. 149/2019). Then, in December 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new law was passed that involved a lengthening of the leave to 12 months. Six months are now assigned to each parent, and each parent can transfer 6 weeks to the other parent. As was the case under the previous law, parents can stretch the leave for up to 2 years by using the leave part-time, which causes a reduction in the monthly amount they receive while on leave (Act on maternity/paternity and parental leave, no. 144/2020). Fathers’ average number of days increased with the extension of the non-transferable period for fathers in 2020 and 2021. However, as already mentioned, no changes were made to the cap on benefits when the new law was introduced, and the cap remained the same during our study period. In practice, due to inflation, the cap has thus scaled down. When calculated at present value, adjusted for inflation, in the period from January 2019 to December 2022, the cap should have increased by 22%—if it was to maintain its substantiality (Statistics Iceland, 2024).

COVID-19 in Iceland

The first case of COVID-19 in Iceland was confirmed on 28 February 2020. In response to the pandemic, Icelandic health authorities gave primary importance to early identification, contact tracing, and implementing social distancing measures, including capping gatherings at a maximum of 20 people. These restrictions were altered over the course of the pandemic, adapting to the infection rate. As a result, the limitations on gatherings fluctuated, ranging from 10 to 200 individuals. During the first 2 months after the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed, a maximum of 20 individuals were allowed to gather in the same space. This time period has been labelled the first wave. The second wave was characterised by a lift in restrictions, and by the end of May 2020, a maximum of 200 individuals were allowed to be in the same space. However already in August, restrictions were increased again, and the 1st months of the third wave of the pandemic were a period of the harshest restrictions, and in late October, the limitations on gatherings were down to 10 individuals (Embætti landlæknis, 2022).

Although upper secondary schools and universities were directed to primarily adopt remote learning, a complete lockdown was not enforced in Iceland. Primary schools and preschools continued to operate with specific limitations. Classrooms were limited to a maximum of 20 children, and intermingling between different groups beyond the classroom was prohibited. After-school programmes, sports, and other extracurricular activities remained suspended (The Directorate of Health and The Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management, 2020). Safety measures also required individuals to maintain a minimum of 2 metres of distance between one another, leading to temporary closure of facilities such as swimming pools, gyms, pubs, and museums. To facilitate these efforts, those who could work remotely were encouraged to do so. The pandemic proved to be a challenging time to have a child as prenatal care guidelines in Iceland changed dramatically as COVID-19 spread through the population in March of 2020. The policies changed rapidly based on the fluctuations of the infection rate, so for most expectant mothers in 2021, partners were not allowed to accompany them to antenatal visits and screening scans (Símonardóttir & Arnalds, 2024). The exclusion of partners from the ultrasound examination was intended to protect staff with specialised skills (Lalor et al., 2021).

The Icelandic government responded with a variety of measures aimed at alleviating the economic and societal repercussions of the coronavirus outbreak. Examples of these measures included the assurance of wages during quarantine, considerable subsidies for income loss, one-off child benefit payments, and allowing people to withdraw funds from their voluntary pension savings. The goal of the measures was to protect jobs and make it easier for people and businesses to cope with a temporary loss of income (Government of Iceland, 2020).

Statistics from the ILO, World Economic Forum, and Statistics Iceland show that women in Iceland were more likely than men to drop out of the labour market following the COVID-19 pandemic (Barkardóttir, 2022). Women in the public sector were more likely to work from home than men, but the men who did stay at home increased their share of domestic work (Eydal et al., 2022). A survey measuring if and how the load of domestic labour had changed with the COVID-19 pandemic shows that 83% of respondents with children in the home and 89% of respondents without children said that the division of labour was similar during COVID as it was before (Forsætisráðuneytið, 2022). Qualitative findings nevertheless suggest that, during the pandemic, mothers took on greater mental work than before, as they tried to keep everyone calm and safe (Hjálmsdóttir & Bjarnadóttir, 2021).

Methods

The study applies an explanatory mixed-methods design which consist of analysing quantitative data and then collecting qualitative data to gain a more in-depth understanding of the trends found in the quantitative data (Creswell, 2008). The quantitative part involves analysing register data from Statistics Iceland, which include information on education and household income, while the qualitative data consist of focus group interviews with parents who had a child in 2021.

Quantitative Analysis

Event history analysis is used to analyse the quantitative data. Results are depicted in the form of Kaplan–Meier cumulative probability estimates for each parity (first, second, and third) by calendar year. This provides information on the timing and quantity of births and potential changes thereof between the years 2019 and 2022. We also use piecewise constant exponential models to calculate the relative childbearing risks over calendar years. These estimates are standardised for age and in terms of parities two and three, age of the youngest child, allowing us to control for the effects of age and previous fertility behaviour. We display these relative risks as parity-specific birth intensities, relative to a reference year of 2020 for each birth order (separate models for each birth order). In terms of third births, we also interact education and household income with calendar year in the regression models to obtain estimates of relative changes in the birth risk over calendar year during our study period (for a more detailed discussion about the method see, e.g. Andersson, 1999; Jónsson, 2017; Comolli et al., 2021).

We rely on administrative register data to calculate these birth intensities. The data are stored and processed at Statistics Iceland and include the total female population born in Iceland during 1973–2002. The original study population consists of 60,982 women. We follow them through ages 20–45 (and 11 months) and calculate their childbearing risks over calendar years (2019–2022) by birth order. The data include year and month of birth of each woman, their childbearing histories, and information needed for data processing, i.e. date of any migration episode and death. In terms of first births, observation spells prior to 2019 and age 20 are left truncated, and women are right censored at the time of emigration, if they emigrated before any first birth, at death, the month they turn 46 years old, or 31 December 2022—whichever comes first. In terms of parities two and three, women enter the analysis at the birth of first or second child, and we follow them until they have a second or third child. The same criteria as with parity one applies when it comes to censoring but, where applicable, with regard to higher parities. Also, in terms of parities two and three, women are right censored if they had multiple first or second births.

The variables “Childbirth”, “Migration episode”, and “Death” are measured with a monthly accuracy and used as such in the analyses. “Calendar year” is measured in single years 2019–2022. “Age of women” is measured with a monthly accuracy and categorised into 26 categories (ages 20–45). “Age of the youngest child” is measured in months from previous birth, categorised into nine groups: 0 years, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6–7, 8–9, and 10 years and older. “Education” is a time-varying variable, measured annually, and categorised into three groups: lower secondary education or less; upper secondary or post-secondary education but not tertiary education; and tertiary education. Finally, “Household income” is also time-varying, measured annually, and divided into quintiles. The distribution is based on household income of everyone residing in Iceland each year between 2018 and 2021, and the subjects are categorised as belonging to one of the five household-income categories: low, medium–low, medium, medium–high, and high. In the analysis, when calculating yearly childbearing risks, we use household income from the previous year.

Qualitative Analysis

The qualitative aspect of the study employs focus group interviews to gain in-depth understanding of the fertility rise in 2021 as they are especially useful as a complement to other methods of data collection for providing in-depth information in a relatively short period of time. Furthermore, focus group interviews promote interaction among participants, and the range of data generated through the social interaction of the group can often be richer than those obtained from one-to-one interviews (Gundumogula & Gundumogula, 2020). The recruitment of participants was carried out through diverse social media platforms and via snowball sampling. The eligibility criteria focused on parents residing in Iceland who had a child in the year 2021. A self-selected group of respondents, 22 mothers and five fathers, participated in the study. The age range of the participants was 21–44, with an average age of 32. Notably, a significant majority held a university degree in terms of educational attainment. The composition of the groups consisted of complete strangers who had responded to the call for participation, apart from two couples who participated in the focus group interviews together.

Most participants were in married or cohabiting heterosexual relationships, except for one participant who had recently separated. Among the 27 participants, 14 became first-time parents in 2021, while the remaining 13 had their second or third child. Five focus group interviews were conducted between November and December 2022, with between four and seven participants in each focus group. These sessions, lasting from 79 to 94 min each, were conducted within a conference room at the authors’ workplace in the capital area in Iceland. All interviews were audio recorded with explicit participant consent, and they were subsequently transcribed professionally. The interview guide focused on the parents’ experiences during the COVID-19 period, including topics such as timing of childbirth, the decision-making processes, and specific challenges or opportunities arising from the pandemic for both participants and their families. The authors engaged in ongoing discussions to refine and adapt the interview questions after each focus group session, aiming to optimise their effectiveness during the interview process.

Ethical considerations were addressed comprehensively. The research secured a positive review from the Research Ethics Committee for Public Higher Education Institutions in Iceland. Written informed consent was procured from all interviewees, and the study’s purpose was clarified to participants through written communication and in-person interactions. To ensure participant confidentiality, identifiable details were purposefully excluded. Moreover, as a gesture of appreciation for their involvement, all participants were provided with gift certificates. Transcripts of the focus group interviews were created verbatim and subsequently thematically analysis, as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). The analytical process followed a methodical progression, beginning with a thorough examination of all interview data, during which notes were taken and preliminary patterns were identified. Once a comprehensive grasp of the dataset was achieved, the researchers employed ATLAS.ti, a qualitative data analysis software, to systematise and process the themes and patterns relating to the research question.

Results

We first present findings from the quantitative analysis of register data attained from Statistic Iceland. The findings present changes in fertility from 2019 to 2022 to address the question of what characterised the fertility increase in 2021, in terms of mothers’ age, parity, education, and household income. Following the discussion of the quantitative results, we present findings from the qualitative interviews to gain a deeper understanding of if and how the parental leave reform and societal mechanisms related to the pandemic-shaped people’s childbearing decisions.

Fertility in Iceland from 2019 to 2022

Figure 2 features the monthly Total Fertility Rate of Iceland during 2019–2022. The small baby boom of 2021 is visible in the graph, depicted by the development between the years 2020 and 2021 when the TFR increased by 6%, from 1.79 in 2020 to 1.90 in 2021. The graph also shows that the monthly TFRs in 2021 were highest during the months of spring and summer, while in 2019, 2020, and 2022, the TFR was highest during the fall.

Fig. 2.

Monthly Total Fertility Rate of Iceland, 2019–2022.

Source: Icelandic register data, authors’ calculations

Figure 3 depicts Kaplan–Meier cumulative probability estimates of synthetic cohorts progressing to parities one, two, and three by calendar year. When it comes to parity one (Fig. 3a), we hardly detect any changes in the progression rates over time. During 2019–2021, at age 29, half of the women had progressed to parenthood, and at age 46, the proportion had increased to approximately 86%. In 2022, we observe a minor decrease: At age 30, the estimates demonstrate that roughly 50% of women had given birth to their first child, and at age 46, around 83% had progressed to parity one.

Fig. 3.

First-, second-, and third-birth Kaplan–Meier cumulative probability estimates in Iceland 2019–2022 by age of woman (first birth) and age of youngest child (second and third births).

Source: Icelandic register data, authors’ calculations

We also find only minor changes in the estimates when it comes to one-child mothers progressing to parity two during the study period (Fig. 3b). With some good will, we can detect some difference in the second-birth estimates during 2020–2021 compared to the calendar years 2019 and 2022, both in terms of quantum and the timing of births, but these may be related to random variation between years. The results show that 91–92% of one-child mothers had progressed to parity two during 2020–2021, compared to 90% in 2019 and 2022.

In terms of parity three (Fig. 3c), we observe more profound changes in both the quantum and the timing of births, compared to lower parities. In 2021, two-child mothers progressed at a faster rate to parity three compared to the years 2019, 2020, and 2022, which suggests changes in the timing of third births and shorter third-birth intervals only in 2021. Also, 59% of two-child mothers had given birth to a third child before the second-born child turned 20 in 2021, compared to 51–53% in 2019, 2020, and 2022. These estimates thus indicate that the fertility increase in 2021 was mostly due to changes in third-birth rate but also that the increase was only temporary as it retracted in 2022.

In order to better understand these changes, our focus is on parity three, and we next present a standardised third-birth rate over the calendar years 2019–2022 by education and income. This allows us to explore whether certain socio-economic groups of two-child mothers contributed more to the increase in the third-birth childbearing risk than others relative to their previous behaviour.

Figure 4 features the third-birth intensities of Icelandic-born women during 2019–2022, standardised for age of mothers and age of the second-born child. The figure indicates that the third-birth risk remained relatively stable between 2019 and 2020 but that it was 24% higher in 2021 than the year before. In 2022, the risk decreased again to a similar level as in 2020.

Fig. 4.

Relative risk of third births in Iceland 2019–2022. Standardised for age of mother and age of second born. Rates are relative to the rates in 2020.

Source: Icelandic register data, authors’ calculations

Figure 5 depicts how the increase in third-birth intensities during 2021 was distributed across educational groups, categorised into three broad categories: lower secondary education or less; upper secondary or post-secondary education but not tertiary education; and tertiary education. The rates are relative to the ones in 2020 within each category and thus do not tell us the absolute difference in risk between categories over calendar years. The figure shows that two-child mothers with tertiary education experienced the most increase in third-birth risk between 2020 and 2021, or 38%, followed by women with lower secondary education or less, who had a 17% increase during the time period. In 2022, the group with the highest educational attainment still had a 9% higher third-birth risk than what they had in 2020 (but only 72% of the risk they had in 2021) while the group with the lowest educational attainment depicted 95% of their third-birth risk in 2020. Apart from a handsome increase between 2019 and 2020, when the risk increased by 35%, the third-birth intensities among the middle-educated group remained relatively stable between 2020 and 2022. On average, during the 4-year period, women with upper secondary or post-secondary education but not tertiary education had 5% higher third-birth intensities than women with lower secondary education or less while women with tertiary education had a 37% higher risk (not shown but available upon request).

Fig. 5.

Relative risk of third births in Iceland 2019–2022. Standardised for age of mother and age of second born. Rates are relative to the rates in 2020. Relative risks are relative to those in 2020 within each education category.

Source: Icelandic register data, authors’ calculations

In terms of household income, Fig. 6 indicates that the third-birth intensities increased across all household-income categories between 2020 and 2021, but that the magnitude of the increase differed across groups. As before, this figure features the third-birth intensities relative to the year 2020 within each category. The household-income categories that experienced the most increase in risk between the years 2020 and 2021 were the middle–high- and the high-income groups that depicted around 27% higher third-birth risk in 2021 compared to the year before. The middle-income group experienced a 21% increase while the third-birth risks of the middle–low- and low-income groups increased by 17 and 16%, respectively. We also observe that the third-birth intensities among the low-income category increased by 58% between 2019 and 2020. On average, during these 4 years, the high-income category had a 65% higher third-birth risk than the middle–low-income category, the middle–high-income category had a 29% higher risk, while the middle-income category and the low-income category had 16 and 20% higher childbearing risks, respectively, relative to the middle-low-income category.

Fig. 6.

Relative risk of third births in Iceland 2019–2022. Standardised for age of mother and age of second born. Rates are relative to the rates in 2020. Relative risks are relative to those in 2020 within each household-income category.

Source: Icelandic register data, authors’ calculations

In sum, after controlling for age, parity, and birth intervals, our findings suggest that albeit the second-birth intensities increased somewhat between the years 2020 and 2021, the fertility increase during 2021 was mainly related to developments in the third-birth rate. Also, the results indicate that the increase in the standardised third-birth intensities between 2020 and 2021 was stronger among the more affluent households, and women with tertiary education—compared to other groups of women.

Exploring the Role of the Parental Leave Reform on Childbearing

When asked directly if the parental leave reform, implemented in 2021, influenced their decision to have a child at this point in time, most of the focus group participants said that it did not. Out of all 27 participants only two acknowledged that the new parental leave influenced their decision in any way, with one mother describing how they postponed trying for a baby for 1 month to make sure that the baby would be born when the new law was in place:

We made the decision to have baby number two. And I start calculating and I naturally have a [regular] menstrual cycle, like a textbook example of one. And I calculated that the due date was 31 December and I just thought yes, I’m going to wait one more cycle. (Mother—Group 2)

Despite not actively waiting for the law to come into effect to have their children, the participants are nevertheless pleased with the lengthening of the available parental leave from 10 to 12 months, and several participants describe how the extra 2 months were important to them as they planned who would stay at home to care for the child at any given time. This planning is nevertheless fraught with worry as the parents have no clear information on when their child might get a place in preschool or with a childminder. Many parents, therefore, need to plan for different eventualities, reducing their working hours, spreading the allocated parental leave over more months, which can be financially difficult:

Yes, but it had more of an effect due to the lack of places in preschool, I had to extend my parental leave and then they reduced the payments, so for the last few months you were kind of just scraping by. (Father – Group 3)

It is important to keep in mind that the availability of affordable and well-structured childcare holds significant importance in influencing parental decisions regarding how they use paid parental leave. At present, children in all Nordic nations except Iceland have a universal right to a place in publicly subsidised childcare services from the end of the parental leave period (Duvander & Ellingsæter, 2016). This context is important when we explore parent satisfaction with the parental leave system. The cap on payments, 600 thousand ISK (3970 EUR), but never more than 80% of monthly wages, has remained the same since 2019 and was repeatedly mentioned by the study participants as being far too low and having negatively impacted their financial status and even the possibility of (especially) fathers being able to afford to fully use their allocated leave:

Yes, we are dealing with the ceiling [cap on payments] right now because my husband is working half time and half on parental leave, so he still only has a salary up to the ceiling… and his salary is much higher now than it was in 2020, which is, you know, the year when this is calculated, so we are taking on a 200 thousand ISK [1300 EUR] income reduction every single month because he is on 50% leave. (Mother—Group 1)

When asked if it the participants feel it is important that fathers use their individual parental leave, one participant said that it was “of course preferable, but you have to be able to afford it” (Mother—Group 4), and this statement is reiterated by many of the participants. Having to spread parental leave over more months to bridge the gap until the child gets a place in preschool means that the monthly payments become even lower, resulting in more financial stress and gendered consequences where the parent with the lower wage (usually the mother) will ultimately take a much larger share of the parental leave:

You know he [father] cannot stretch his leave and we really cannot afford it either. You know when you’ve been stretching it for such a long time, it has been like a year and a half. (Mother—Group 1)

Although participants were generally pleased with the new parental leave reform, there remain several problems with the parental leave provisions as they currently stand. The cap on payments and the financial strain experienced by parents trying to make do with a considerable income reduction, while trying to bridge the gap before their child enters preschool is repeatedly mentioned. The severe income reduction is nevertheless not the only issue, as the flat-rate benefits for students and non-working parents were also mentioned by our participants as being so low that they are considered a “joke” (Mother—Group 2). Drawing on all the focus group interviews we see that the participants construct their pregnancies as happening despite the family policies currently in place in the Iceland context, not because of them. The participants hold negative views towards the parental leave system and lack of childcare options following parental leave and the new law was neither noted as being a factor in the decision-making process to have a child, nor as adequately financially supportive to facilitate further childbearing.

Exploring the Role of Societal Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic on Childbearing

The parents who took part in the focus group interviews all had a child in 2021 and when asked directly if their decision to have a child was in any way related to the COVID-19 pandemic, most participants did not elaborate on a direct link. When probed further and asked why they thought other people had decided to have a child during the pandemic, and what changed for them in their personal life during COVID, some interesting themes emerged from their narratives. One of the things that were repeatedly mentioned is how ordinary life was in some way “on hold” which, in turn, created an opening to have a child. One participant described how “people were more able to control their time” (Mother—Group 1), and the atmosphere would even remind one participant of being on parental leave:

So, of course the ban on gatherings, especially the first one when everyone was just at home, kind of reminded me of parental leave. You know it is kind of a similar situation, you just go out to the store and otherwise you’re at home… Then maybe it [having a child] will suddenly become appealing, you know it [the pandemic] was not as bad as people thought... Everyone just “hygge”. (Mother—Group 1)

Participants describe how the slower pace of family life and social obligations created space for them to have a child and this relates to ideas that were often referenced about making the best use of the time that the pandemic created:

No, you know, you’ve already planned the summer and you were going to go abroad and do all sorts of things and you were going to wait to get pregnant and do that before, but of course it just came to nothing. (Mother—Group 2)

Yes, well, it fit well, and I thought it rather encouraged the idea to use this time that was not used for anything else, in order to be pregnant. (Mother—Group 4)

When trips abroad and social obligations disappear, some participants describe actively wanting to “find something to do” (Mother—Group 5) and others, albeit tongue in cheek, connect this state of “boredom” to people “getting a dog, and cats and something” (Mother—Group 2). For others, especially those who were already parents, the pandemic offered a sense of rest from the daily grind of family life, stress of having to drop kids off at their extracurricular activities and the stresses of having too much on your plate at once. Several parents echoed this feeling of rest during COVID-19, especially in relation to their parental leave where “there was no one pressuring me to go to the coffeeshop or something, I just got to be at home” (Mother—Group 1). Despite the fact that most of the study group participants would not say that the pandemic was a deciding factor in their decision to have a child we can nevertheless see how they construct certain opportunities that arose because of the pandemic and the relevant restrictions that were in place during that time. These opportunities arise because of a slower pace of life, less social commitments and family obligations, and provide those who had already wanted to have a child with space and time in which to do so. A quote from a mother who took part in one of the focus group interviews captures how this plays out on an individual level, but one that also speaks to the experience of many of the participants:

Uh yes, I think it is quite possible to say that it was planned that way and it is hard to say if COVID influenced the decision… I did not think it [COVID] was an obstacle, I thought it was rather nice to be pregnant and not be able to do anything when you cannot do anything anyway. (Mother—Group 4)

Discussion and Conclusion

The study’s aim was to gain insight into what characterised the rise in fertility in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Iceland, and to explore if and how the rise in fertility might be associated with the extension of paid parental leave in 2021 and the societal changes that emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our methodological approach was mainly descriptive, and our empirical results were partially interpreted by findings from several focus groups. As a result, our ability to make any robust inference is limited, especially considering that the two events, the parental leave reform and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, occurred in parallel, making it hard to disentangle potential impact of each event on the childbearing behaviour. Nevertheless, our findings highlight some important aspects behind the fertility increase during 2021.

Analysis of register data from Statistics Iceland shows that the rise in fertility in 2021 can mainly be explained by an increase in third-birth intensities, but also that the increase was only temporary as it retracted in 2022. According to monthly TFRs, the rise in fertility during 2021 occurred mainly from May to August, but already in September 2021, the rates had declined to similar levels as were observed in 2019 and 2020. Thus, the baby boom was short-lived. Furthermore, the quantitative data show that those who had the strongest reactions in terms of increased third-birth intensities in 2021 were educated women, who were in a good financial state. Thereby, the findings from the quantitative part of our study mirror findings on which group of mothers contributed to the fertility rise in 2021 in Norway (Lappegård et al., 2023). Although we do not know the mothers’ line of work, the results indicate that the largest group of mothers who had a child in 2021 were in an economically and socially secure position. It may be that their status, along with the government policies that were meant to mitigate the economic and societal consequences of the pandemic, reduced the negative impact of economic uncertainty on their childbearing decisions.

In Iceland, there is a strong tendency to have more than one child (Jónsson, 2017), and it is highly likely that a large part of the mothers had intended to have a second or third child, but perhaps the pandemic led some of them to decide to have their children earlier than they had initially intended. But why did they decide to have a child at this point in time? When attempting to explain whether the parental leave reform was associated with a fertility increase in 2021, it is important to acknowledge that already in 2022, the TFR had decreased to 1.67 (Statistics Iceland, 2024). This decrease suggests that the extension of paid parental leave does not seem to have had the side effect of increasing people’s desires to have (more) children. Furthermore, most of the fertility increase occurred during May–August. If the extension of the parental leave caused the rise in fertility during 2021, we would have expected that the fertility increase would have lasted longer. It is also noteworthy that the other Nordic countries also witnessed a rise in their fertility rates in 2021, which leads us to infer that the small baby boom of 2021 can hardly be explained by the parental leave reform in Iceland. Results from the focus group interviews give some support to this conclusion. In the interviews, the new law on paid parental leave was not identified as a contributing factor in the choice to have a child, nor was it perceived as providing sufficient financial support to enable additional childbearing. The policy context in which Icelandic parents give birth and rear children was constructed as somewhat hostile, mostly because of the cap on parental leave benefits and an extremely low flat-rate benefits for students and non-working parents, but also because of the lack of available daycare following parental leave. One distinguishable feature of the Icelandic policy framework is a gap that exists between paid parental leave and preschool (Arnalds et al., 2013). Despite the recent parental leave reform, this gap has not been bridged, as children are often not offered a place in the public preschools until they reach the age of two.

The focus group interviews suggest that despite experiencing the current family policy environment as unfavourable, the parents nevertheless described a certain societal environment created by the pandemic as positive for having a child. As Berrington et al. (2022) have suggested, the increased time spent at home and the limited involvement in social activities outside the home might have promoted a renewed emphasis on domestic life, where individuals might have regarded the pandemic as an opportune time to have children. Interestingly, the timing of the rise in fertility in 2021 suggests that conceptions took place during the fall of 2020, when restrictions were being harshened. Similar to what was found in Nisén et al.’s (2022) study from Finland, the timing of births suggest that people realised that the pandemic would be prolonged and, therefore, may have decided to use the opportunity to have a child. This is reflected by several of our focus interview study participants who describe how “ordinary” life was somehow “on hold”, opening up possibilities to have a child or add a child to the family. It is interesting to note that the focus group participants seem more comfortable discussing these issues thinking in abstract—why they think other people had children during a global pandemic, instead of why they decided to a have a child during that time. Considering powerful parenting discourses that proclaim that all aspects of parenting, also the time of conception, should be meticulously planned and thought out (Hays, 1996; Budds, 2013), describing the decision to have a child as having something to do with seemingly “frivolous” activities as not being able to go on trips abroad or simply feeling bored can perhaps undermine the assumed sanctity of the parenting role and the important life event of having a child.

For some, the COVID-19 pandemic provided a respite from the usual demands of family life, the stress associated with shuttling kids to their extracurricular activities, and the overwhelming feeling of having too many responsibilities at once. This reflects certain tensions within the parenting culture where the societal norms related to intensive parenting can provide an explanation for the documented rise in both the time and financial resources that parents invest in their children, as noted in the previous studies (Craig et al., 2014; Gauthier et al., 2021). Studies in this domain have unveiled the stress and expectations placed on parents to conform to this evolving norm, even to the detriment of their personal well-being (Rizzo et al., 2013). It is interesting to note that despite several challenges associated with the pandemic, it might have in some way alleviated stress from the parental role, at least within the Icelandic context.

The results also have some policy implications. The lengthening of the leave, without subsequent changes to the cap on payments and securing children a place in preschools after the leave, may not provide sufficient support to parents when it comes to childbearing and childrearing—at least not within a dual-earner/dual-carer model. Finding a way to bridge the gap between paid parental leave and preschool puts strain on parents, especially mothers, who more often than fathers bridge the gap by extending their parental leave or adjusting their participation in the labour market until the child starts preschool (Arnalds et al., 2021; Ingólfsdóttir & Gíslason, 2016). Furthermore, when the cap on parental leave benefits was lowered severely in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crash, fathers’ use of paid parental leave decreased compared to the pre-crisis period, in parallel to declining fertility (Arnalds et al., 2021; Sigurðardóttir & Garðarsdóttir, 2018; Jónsson, 2018). These findings are mirrored in our participants’ narratives who describe how the cap on benefits shaped leave uptake for fathers. The cap has remained unchanged since 2019, meaning the proportion of parents with salaried earnings above the ceiling will continue to rise according to pay increases.

Finally, questions of class and status become pertinent when we explore the results from the quantitative analysis and the experiences of our focus group participants. The quantitative findings show that the fertility increase during the pandemic was mainly driven by educated women with a high family income, who already had children, and a significant majority of the participants of our focus groups held a university degree and could be classified as middle class. This suggests that the pandemic may have been an ideal time to have children for the better off, but that the positive aspects of life during the pandemic may not have been experienced in the same vein by those in a more vulnerable financial and social situation.

Author Contributions

Authors names are arranged in alphabetical order. We use multiple “first” authors practice in this study. All authors have contributed equally to the ideas of the paper, design of the study, data collection and analysis, writings, and the discussion.

Funding

This study was funded by the Icelandic Research Fund, grant number 228294.

Data Availability

The quantitative data used in this study cannot be shared publicly by the authors because of data safety reasons. All microdata collected by Statistics Iceland is considered confidential data. Data are nevertheless available at Statistics Iceland but the applicant needs to get an approval from Statistics Iceland's research service (https://statice.is/services/data-for-scientific-research). Likewise, the qualitative data cannot be shared due to anonymity. Iceland is a very small country and sharing data collected among parents, living in the capital area, who had a child in 2021, could cause the risk of participants being identified.

Declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.