Lockdown or loneliness? Covid brought on a ‘kind of stressful’ baby boom in Australia

Lynette Thomson and her daughter, Lorelai. A new report says a record 315,705 babies were born in Australia in 2021. Photograph: Abigail Varney/The Guardian

A pandemic might not seem like the ideal time to have a baby, but new data backs up the idea that Covid precipitated a baby boom.

According to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report – Australia’s mothers and babies – a record 315,705 babies were born in 2021, while the birthrate itself was up to 61 per 1,000 women of reproductive age from 56 per 1,000 the year before.