Your iPhone may now be a form of birth control, economists warn.
New research is linking America’s plummeting birth rate to the rise of the iPhone, providing evidence that smartphone use is causing people to have fewer children. A working paper published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that in the first four years of the iPhone’s release, geographies with access to the device saw reduced births from 4.5% to 8% for ages 15 to 19, and a 3.2% to 6.6% reduction in births for ages 20 to 24. These birth rates decreased the most among teenagers, but were reduced in every age group.
