South African fans got into the World Cup spirit in more ways than one. Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
There are two reasons for this: people were having more sex and they were happy.
In our study, published in the journal Early Human Development, we found that nine months after the World Cup, the sex ratio at birth increased. The ratio is defined as the proportion of male babies in the total population of babies born.
The sex ratio at birth can be used to assess the stress a population is under.
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