This is a pretty mind blowing result. Moreover, this was before the really addictive apps were available, like TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts. So it probably has gotten even worse since then.
Study claims iPhone contributed to a significant decrease in the birth rate after its release in 2007, when AT&T was the only carrier for the phone, allowing researchers to “isolate an iPhone-specific channel” and compare birth rates in areas with a high AT&T customer base to competitors' areas:
“The diffusion of the iPhone explains 33-52 percent of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15-44.”
Authors go on to muse that “as modern smartphones diffused, time spent with friends in person and sexual activity fell sharply alongside rising consumption of pornography, a possible substitute for partnered sex.”
Nothing to do, of course, with AT&T’s customer base at the time being urban, well-educated, and white, or that U.S. birth rate in the youngest groups had already been falling before 2007 with the trend continuing during study period.
The authors do address this issue, by reweighting their treatment and control counties on observable covariates. But I agree with you that this isn’t the causally watertight research design that economists usually strive for.
It might be worthwhile using local lightning strikes as an instrument for 3G coverage. Others have done this, but not for fertility afaik. But the lightning strike data costs about $1000.
I don’t want to be flippantly dismissive but surely there was a certain other event in 2008 that caused many families to reconsider the financial wisdom of starting a family.
Even if you control for age and wealth, the people who used iPhones in 2008, i.e. tech hipsters, are obviously different in tangible ways from the people who didn't use iPhones in 2008. It's not possible to prove causality from that.
Maybe some people realized that they could wait a few years and still have kids later, and others didn't think about having kids purely though the lens of evolutionary biology.
nitpick about what you said: you don't wanna postpone that plan too much. At 40 you won't have the energy to keep up with the needs of the kid. You will hate your life and you'll make a ton of mistakes. I had them young, and my career and financial situation weren't affected at all.
Before political correctness hit this area, doctors' observations led to classifying any first pregnancy past 25yo as geriatric. Healthcare progresses in some areas, some (like DS) are rigid to socially defined trends.
Last century geriatric pregnancy was one term used for over 35s. It is no longer used, and 25 is social media bullshit. Apparently the term was created ~1960 for international usage because medical complications after that age were far more risky in the 50s.
In this modern world where highly effective birth control is cheap and straightforward, we really need to stop equating fertility rates with levels of sexual activity. You can have plenty of sex and not have a child; you can have very little sex and have a substantial number of children.
It's fascinating to me how personal choice never seems to enter into these discussions, even in relatively highly educated, first-world democracies. I actively chose to not have kids -- it was not an accidental by-product of iphones or any other proposed environmental factor.
The most absolutely infuriating thing about fertility rate discussions is the conclusion everyone draws of "obviously people aren't having enough sex".
I was sexually active for over 15 years before having exactly 1 child when I decided to.
The limiting factor in the number of children I have has at no point been the frequency of intercourse itself.
There's a subgenre of dystopian sci-fi where the premise is that reality in general is destined to be eclipsed by matrix-like hyper-realities, and that people will vastly prefer those and cede reality to whoever's left.
I guess the way this could work itself out is that if you prefer a hyper-reality, your genes do not pass on, and someone else's do, and within some number of generations we bounce back in response to evolutionary pressure.
I learned a fun fact in a recent interview of David Reich (by Dwarkesh):
> Every mutation that can occur does occur. There are eight billion people in the world. There are maybe 30 new mutations every generation, so that’s 240 billion new point mutations every generation. There are only three billion DNA bases in the genome, so every mutation that can occur does occur about 100 times every generation. We’re not mutation-limited anymore.
What makes an iPhone better than Durex is that you can take it out of your pocket and everyone will envy you. In that sense, I think it's an envy-inducing contraceptive tool.
It is "birth control" but in sort of opposite way. People are now much better informed, thanks to internet and devices like iphone. They do not have to relly on state education (that wants more babies) and popular shows like Friends.
State founded school is not going to tell you it costs $1200000 to raise baby, or you have 50% it will be taken away.
It will also push stats made in lab controlled conditions, and gloss over unreliability of such medications in real life (like if you would skip a pill for a few days).
Failure rate of birth control in normal life is around 10% per year (if you drink, forget to take pill at very exact time, use antibiotics). So there would be about chance 50% to get unwanted baby over years. Well informed person will not make such mistake.
retire? Retiring only on Social Security is pretty tough, and $1.2M would provide like $4K/month income which on top of Social Security may allow for modest lifestyle in some low COL area.
Wrt. the original post i'd agree with GP - better information/education is probably the most powerful birth control.
If you don't have children to inherit your fortune to, you can retire with full exhaustion of capital - that will yield way more than 4k$/month. Plus, if you don't have children there is not much holding you in the US - you can look at 2nd world countries. I.e. That money buys you a good retirement lifestyle in Mexiko, Brazil, Argentina etc. Or Vietnam, Thailand etc. if you are more into asia.
Actually raising a child costs more than $1.2M - just $20K/year invested in S&P500 over the last 20 years would have grown to more than $1.2M. Or those $20K/year could be spend on the child. And $20K/year is pretty low.
Surely there's an enormous amount of money behind it, but where's the ROI ?
People prefer scrolling to sex enough that using the iPhone explains up to half of the U.S. birth decline since 2011.
Study claims iPhone contributed to a significant decrease in the birth rate after its release in 2007, when AT&T was the only carrier for the phone, allowing researchers to “isolate an iPhone-specific channel” and compare birth rates in areas with a high AT&T customer base to competitors' areas:
“The diffusion of the iPhone explains 33-52 percent of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15-44.”
Authors go on to muse that “as modern smartphones diffused, time spent with friends in person and sexual activity fell sharply alongside rising consumption of pornography, a possible substitute for partnered sex.”
Nothing to do, of course, with AT&T’s customer base at the time being urban, well-educated, and white, or that U.S. birth rate in the youngest groups had already been falling before 2007 with the trend continuing during study period.
It might be worthwhile using local lightning strikes as an instrument for 3G coverage. Others have done this, but not for fertility afaik. But the lightning strike data costs about $1000.
Since people using other carriers also experienced 2008, it's not that.
Or maybe the type of person that buys iPhones also spends too much on other items causing them to be over leveraged when a financial crash does occur.
Now ~20% of all pregnancies in the US are 35+.
It's fascinating to me how personal choice never seems to enter into these discussions, even in relatively highly educated, first-world democracies. I actively chose to not have kids -- it was not an accidental by-product of iphones or any other proposed environmental factor.
The most absolutely infuriating thing about fertility rate discussions is the conclusion everyone draws of "obviously people aren't having enough sex".
I was sexually active for over 15 years before having exactly 1 child when I decided to.
The limiting factor in the number of children I have has at no point been the frequency of intercourse itself.
On the other hand, as William James wrote, one of definite characteristics of a religious experience is seriousness. "All is not vanity."
I guess the way this could work itself out is that if you prefer a hyper-reality, your genes do not pass on, and someone else's do, and within some number of generations we bounce back in response to evolutionary pressure.
I learned a fun fact in a recent interview of David Reich (by Dwarkesh):
> Every mutation that can occur does occur. There are eight billion people in the world. There are maybe 30 new mutations every generation, so that’s 240 billion new point mutations every generation. There are only three billion DNA bases in the genome, so every mutation that can occur does occur about 100 times every generation. We’re not mutation-limited anymore.
https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/david-reich-2
State founded school is not going to tell you it costs $1200000 to raise baby, or you have 50% it will be taken away.
It will also push stats made in lab controlled conditions, and gloss over unreliability of such medications in real life (like if you would skip a pill for a few days).
Failure rate of birth control in normal life is around 10% per year (if you drink, forget to take pill at very exact time, use antibiotics). So there would be about chance 50% to get unwanted baby over years. Well informed person will not make such mistake.
Completely wrong. Not even plausible. You think every family is spending $67K per year, per baby, until they're 18? What?
What exactly are you planning to do with all that money anyway? Consume things?
Get all McKinsey and calculate a TCO of a baby from conception to end-of-uni. $1.2M is low-end even for eastern EU, it's more like twice that.
0-to-23. $100K/year. This what a baby costs.
Wrt. the original post i'd agree with GP - better information/education is probably the most powerful birth control.