A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that an increase in national teams’ performance in international cups is associated with a drop in birth rates nine months after the event.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 860, 2021

More goals, fewer babies? On national teams’ performance and birth rates – Download PDF
by Fumarco, Luca & Principe, Francesco

GLO Fellow Luca Fumarco

Author Abstract: Does national team performance boost birth rates? We compiled a unique dataset combining country-level monthly birth rates for 50 European countries, along 56 years, with measures of national teams’ performance in 27 international football events. We find that an increase in national teams’ performance in international cups is associated with a drop in birth rates nine months after the event. We hypothesize that these results might be explained by individuals’ time allocation choices.

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