Overview
- The most prominent paper, published Monday as an NBER working paper, exploits Apple’s 2007–2011 iPhone exclusivity with AT&T and county-level AT&T coverage to estimate that early iPhone diffusion accounted for roughly 33 to 52 percent of the U.S. fertility decline from 2007 to 2011.
- The NBER authors report the biggest drops were among women aged 15–24, with births falling about 4.5–8.0 percent for ages 15–19 and 3.2–6.6 percent for ages 20–24, and smaller but significant declines at older ages.
- Both the NBER paper and a separate University of Cincinnati study that examined 128 countries point to behavioral channels: less in-person socializing and dating, wider access to online pornography, and easier information on contraception and abortion that could reduce unintended pregnancies.
- Scholars have raised concrete objections to the causal claim, noting long-running pre-2000 declines in teen births, the 2008 recession’s timing, and the possibility that AT&T placed early infrastructure in nonrandom, wealthier or denser counties that could bias results.
- The findings have immediate demographic weight because sustained lower birth rates affect population aging, workforce size and public finances, but no policy responses have been adopted and researchers stress these working papers advance a strong hypothesis rather than definitive proof.