Parental socioeconomic composition of birth cohorts changed during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic offers opportunities to study effects of in-utero and early life exposure to environmental changes. However, inferences from such studies may be flawed if the pandemic has changed the socioeconomic composition of parents. Analysing over 77.9 million live births from 15 countries, we estimate changes in the socioeconomic composition of the cohort born between December 2020 and December 2021 using interrupted time series analysis. We find that, compared with their counterfactual compositions, the December 2020-December 2021 birth cohort has a higher proportion of babies born to socioeconomically advantaged parents in Austria, England, Finland, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Wales, and the United States while we observe the opposite change for Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. These changes in cohort composition may cause between-cohort differences in life course outcomes that are influenced by parental socioeconomic circumstances even if early life exposure to the pandemic had no direct effect on this birth cohort.
Authors
- Moritz Oberndorfer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3987-0823)
- Ila Rocha Falcão (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6961-3858)
- Pekka Martikainen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9374-1438)
- John Lynch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2781-7902)
- Olof Östergren (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7156-3260)
- Márta Radó (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1676-5951)
- Lizbeth Burgos Ochoa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8379-2749)
- Peter Fallesen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0544-9977)
- Alicia Montgomerie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9620-3894)
- Juha Luukkonen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2286-0349)
- Rhiannon Pilkington (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6974-8496)
- Jasper V. Been (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4907-6466)
- Hanna Remes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9291-703X)
- Thomas Waldhör
- E Cruz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9411-1698)
Institutions
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- Stockholm University (SE)
- Tilburg University (NL)
- Swedish Institute (SE)
- Karolinska Institutet (SE)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- Knowledge Integration (United Kingdom) (GB)
- London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (GB)
- Rockwool Foundation (DK)
- MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit (GB)
- Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (DE)
- Erasmus MC - Sophia Children’s Hospital (NL)
- The University of Adelaide (AU)
- Medical University of Vienna (AT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-12-13
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66264-z
- Primary Topic
- COVID-19 epidemiological studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Chiesi Farmaceutici
- Helsingin Yliopisto
- Wellcome Trust
- Strong
- European Commission
- ZonMw
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- Jane ja Aatos Erkon Säätiö
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Vetenskapsrådet
- Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
- Forskningsrådet om Hälsa, Arbetsliv och Välfärd
- Medical Research Council
- H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions