The pandemic this, the pandemic that. COVID-19 has taken more things away from us than just our ability to see and hug our friends without the fear of catching something. It’s taken our economy. It’s taken our livelihood. It’s even taken our cars and our babies! Let me explain…
Over the course of the pandemic, we have seen an insane decrease in the production of microchips. We all know that 2021 vehicles are crazy high tech, but we never really think about what goes into making these cars so high tech. Well, they have chips in them just like any other consumer electronic and because the pandemic made it so that people weren’t in the market for consumer electronics, microchip manufacturing companies stopped production for a while.
Now, they are working at high-speed trying to meet the demand that spiked during the past couple months. More and more people are in the market for new cars, but they can’t buy any because the car makers don’t have all the supplies to make a lot of cars at once. So, for now, they are trying to make as many as they can as they wait for more microchips to come into their shops.
In a separate, yet not completely unrelated note, we are seeing a very large decrease in babies due to the pandemic. Babies?! Yes, babies. You’re probably thinking that isn’t true because you see all your friends announcing their pregnancies and it seems like almost everyone is pregnant right now, but it’s actually true. Compared to the 3.75 million babies born in the pre-COVID year of 2019, we are looking at a predicted 8% drop in babies being born this year. That means 300,000 fewer babies.
This drop in percentage of babies being born has a lot to do with the economic and financial state the pandemic has left couples looking to have a baby. And shockingly, this decreasing trend of babies has been going on for years, the pandemic just seemed to speed things along. What will that look like in the future? Well, if things keep going the way that they are, we are looking at a smaller economy in general. There will be a smaller tax base and smaller population which can be bad for productivity growth in a few decades from now.
What other repercussions do you think we’ll face as the pandemic rages on? Let us know in the comment section.
This article is originally published on GREY Journal.
