Are Smartphones Contributing to Declining Birth Rates?

A new working paper argues that smartphones may be a major reason U.S. birth rates have kept falling since 2007. Economist Caitlin Myers of Middlebury College says the decline in fertility may be tied not just to the Great Recession, as many economists first thought, but to the rapid spread of smartphones after the iPhone launched in 2007. U.S. birth rates have fallen by 22% since then, and Myers estimates that smartphones could explain between one-third and one-half of that drop.

Myers’ paper, titled “Is the iPhone Birth Control?”, uses the early iPhone’s exclusive tie to AT&T as a natural experiment. In the phone’s first years, access depended on whether AT&T broadband coverage was available in a given area. Myers found that births fell more sharply in places where iPhones were available earlier, while areas with limited access saw much smaller declines. She says the pattern remains even after accounting for factors such as population density and local economic conditions, suggesting the effect is not simply due to smartphones spreading faster in cities or wealthier communities.

The theory is that smartphones changed daily behavior in ways that reduced in-person social interaction, especially among young people. Psychologist Jean Twenge says the devices transformed how adolescents spent their time outside school, shifting them from face-to-face activities such as hanging out, driving, or visiting malls toward more screen time and online activity. Myers argues that less in-person interaction likely means fewer opportunities for relationships and pregnancies.

The paper also proposes other possible mechanisms. Smartphones put information about contraception and abortion directly into users’ hands, potentially influencing reproductive decisions. They may also have made pornography more accessible, which Myers says some students described as a substitute for in-person relationships. These changes, she argues, could all have contributed to the long-running drop in fertility.

The birth-rate decline has affected women across age groups, but it has been especially pronounced among teenagers. That timing, Myers says, strengthens the case that smartphones played a role, since teen social life changed dramatically during the same period phones became widespread. The theory remains controversial, but it offers a new explanation for why births did not rebound after the recession ended.

As smartphones became standard across networks and devices proliferated, the question now is whether fertility will stabilize or continue to fall. Myers says the long-term effects of phones on behavior and family formation may continue for years, and more research will be needed to determine how lasting the impact may be.