Two Studies Probe iPhone’s 2007 Link to Falling Birthrates
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jun 8
Two Studies Probe iPhone’s 2007 Link to Falling Birthrates
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 8
Summary
Two new academic papers—one published Monday and another in May—are the first to directly test whether smartphones helped drive the long U.S. and global fertility decline.
The studies target a question that has lingered since 2007, when Apple introduced the iPhone and birthrates began falling, but hard evidence had been missing.
Researchers have struggled to isolate phones’ effect because the same period also included major shocks such as the Great Recession, making simple correlations unreliable.
Without the gold-standard option of randomized experiments, the papers instead use smartphone-related data that researchers say introduced elements of randomness into the analysis.
The work adds a new contender to a debate that has already examined contraception, abortion, rising female education and even the TV show “16 and Pregnant.”