When the pandemic arrived last March, Puneeta Sandhu McBryan had just given birth to her first child, a boy. As she locked down and contemplated the future, the popular narrative was that a lot of couples stuck at home would use their free time to make sourdough loaves?and babies. Sandhu McBryan, who lives in Edmonton, admits that she too fantasized about growing her family?at first. ?All those jokes started about a baby boom and how everyone?s stuck at home,? she says. ?I thought it was kind of funny.?
But as the pandemic wore on, for many, thoughts of using the time to have a second kid faded. How could they not" It quickly became clear that for most women, working from home was increasing their already unequal burden of unpaid work, like childcare and cleaning. Financial challenges that predated the pandemic were being amplified and, worse, people were losing jobs. As early as June 2020, experts with the Brookings Institute suggested the pandemic baby-boom narrative was fantasy, at least in the United States. The spike in unemployment caused by the pandemic, they said, would instead result in up to half a million fewer births in the U.S. in 2021 than previously expected. The pandemic was suddenly a baby bust. Would Canada?s 2021 birth-rate fall at a comparable pace, then, by roughly 50,000 births" Experts first said no, pointing to our superior public services and economic resiliency. Yet roughly a year later, Canada?s unemployment rate is 8.2 percent, two poin...