NBER study links iPhone to decline in U.S. birth rate

A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study links the arrival of the iPhone to a faster decline in the U.S. birth rate after 2007. Two researchers from Middlebury College said smartphones opened up a new factor beyond sex education, access to contraception and economic pressure, which have long been used to explain falling fertility. Because the iPhone, from its launch through February 2011, was sold only through AT&T, they used AT&T's cellular broadband coverage as a marker for early access to the device. Birth rates in areas with that coverage were then compared with places with little or no access. The study estimated that the iPhone and the smartphone era it helped spark contributed as much as 52 percent of the decline in the U.S. birth rate in 2007-2011.