The iPhone fertility rate decline accounts for between 33% and 52% of the fall in US births since 2007, according to a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The paper found that in the first four years after the iPhone’s release, areas with access to the device saw births fall by 4.5% to 8% among those aged 15 to 19, and by 3.2% to 6.6% among those aged 20 to 24.
Between 2007 and 2024, birth rates among 15-to-19-year-olds fell by 70% and by 47% among those aged 20 to 24. Among those aged 30 to 34 the fall was just 7%, while birth rates for women aged 35 to 39 actually rose by 14% over the same period.
How researchers isolated the iPhone fertility rate decline
From June 2007 to February 2011, AT&T was the sole distributor of the iPhone in the United States. Researchers used that monopoly period to create a natural experiment, comparing birth rates in areas where the device was being sold against those where it was not yet available.
Even after controlling for home prices and urban or rural classification, the relationship held: greater iPhone availability meant lower fertility.
‘What we show is that births are declining way faster in the places where you could get the iPhone than the places where you couldn’t,’ said Caitlin Myers, the study’s co-author and a professor of economics at Middlebury College.
Myers co-authored the paper with her son.
Screen time, sex and the ‘baby-less recovery’
US birth rates have been falling for nearly two decades, hitting an all-time low in 2024. Scientists initially attributed the drop to the Great Recession, but births did not recover alongside the economy.
‘The economy recovered, and births didn’t,’ Myers said of the years following the 2008 financial crisis.
Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth, the study found declines not only in social activity outside work and school but also in the frequency of sex.
Myers argued that economic pressures (rising housing and childcare costs, financial anxiety) do not fully explain the trend. The scale of the effect points to something else, she said.
‘I’m not saying those don’t play a role,’ she said. ‘But I think one of the really important things to keep in mind is that this effect is huge.’
CBS News Texas reported that the research attributes 33% to 52% of the overall fertility decline to Apple’s 2007 introduction of the iPhone.
Lower birth rates carry long-term economic consequences: a smaller labour force, reduced consumer spending, an ageing population and mounting pressure on social benefits.
Myers pointed to the work of psychologists including The Anxious Generation author Jonathan Haidt, who has argued that increased screen use among younger generations is associated with anxiety, depression and lower cognitive capability. She said those findings extend to birth rates.
‘I see these declines in births, and I’m wondering, like, are we okay?’ Myers said. ‘People in their twenties, and more broadly, if the reason we’re seeing this decline is because people are all depressed and alone and doom scrolling, I’m worried about us.’
Myers noted that declining teen pregnancy rates are in many cases a positive development. She called for further research to inform policy that can address both the mental health dimension and the country’s economic outlook.
‘My answer, as an economist, is just here to measure the phenomenon,’ she said. ‘My answer, as a human, is this could be cause for concern if it’s another signal that our phones are making us less happy.’
