New Research Points to iPhone as Significant Factor in Plunging Birth Rate
New Research Points to iPhone as Significant Factor in Plunging Birth Rate
Publish Date: 2026-06-22 22:52:00
Source Domain: washingtonstand.com
Amid a rapidly collapsing U.S. birth rate, new research released last week indicates that a major factor in the decline in fertility is likely the release of the iPhone in 2007, which began the era of widespread smartphone adoption and ushered in significant changes in societal behavior, including reduced in-person interactions and increased pornography consumption.
Data released by the CDC in April revealed that the birth rate in America reached a new record low of 53.1 births per 1,000 women, continuing a plunge that began in earnest in 2007. Following a high fertility rate (the average number of births per woman) in the early 1960s of just under four, births nosedived throughout the late ’60s and ’70s, bottoming out at around two by 1980. The rate stayed relatively steady, hovering around two for the next two decades, but in 2007, fertility once again began to drop, to the puzzlement of researchers. The rate has steadily declined over the next 18 years to a current rate of 1.6, well below the level needed to keep the population stable (2.1).
Now, research from Middlebury College economist Caitlin Myers has revealed that a major factor in the decline is likely the release of the iPhone. Myers looked at the birth rates of women aged 15-44 in areas of the U.S. where AT&T broadband coverage was widely available, which from June 2007 to February 2011 was the only carrier that offered iPhone coverage. She found that “access to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5-8.0% at ages 15-19 and 3.2-6.6% at ages 20-24.” Overall, Myers found that “the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33-52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15-44.” She cites further studies finding that the likely reasons behind the technology being so detrimental to fertility are its capacity for “reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and reducing sexual frequency.”
The data from Myers’s research is backed up by another study released in May from…
