Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

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<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1780965293441viktor-talashuk-OYMKjv5zmGU-unsplash.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">&quot;Is the iPhone Birth Control?&quot; a paper published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, delved into why US fertility rates have fallen by 22 percent since 2007. <em>📷༘ Viktor Talashuk, Unsplash</em></span></span></span></div><p>WASHINGTON, United States — As governments around the world struggle with ways to reverse plunging birth rates, new US studies suggest they have ignored a key culprit—the smartphone.</p><p>&quot;Is the iPhone Birth Control?&quot; a paper published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, delved into why US fertility rates have fallen by 22 percent since 2007.</p><p>For a while, experts linked the decline to the recession that struck in 2008 when the global financial system nearly imploded, driving millions of people into hardship. But when the economy picked up, a rebound in births never came.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/spotlight/12/07/23/excessive-gadget-linked-to-phs-poor-math-science-results">Excessive gadget use, education quality challenges contribute to PH&#x27;s PISA lag: Experts</a></div><p>Myriad other reasons have been posited, such as increased use of contraception, more female education, and growing housing or childcare costs. However, no clear cause has been established.</p><p>So Middlebury College economist Caitlin Myers and her student Ezekiel Hooper tested a hypothesis that smartphones -- which emerged with the arrival of the first iPhone in 2007—might have something to do with it.</p><p>Until 2011, iPhones were available from a single US cellular network, AT&amp;T, so they compared US counties that had near-universal AT&amp;T coverage with those that had little or none during those years.</p><p>And they found that access to the iPhone correlated with reductions in births by 4.5–8.0 percent at ages 15–19 and by 3.2–6.6 percent at ages 20–24.</p><p>There were also statistically significant but smaller declines among older women.</p><p>While they stress that iPhones are not the &quot;sole cause,&quot; the introduction of the smartphone &quot;played a sizable role in the decline in US births&quot; after 2007 as it shaped people&#x27;s behavior with less in-person contact.</p><p>&quot;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,&quot; they concluded.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;TECHNOLOGY SHOCK&#x27; </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Another study published in May by University of Cincinnati economists Nathan Hudson and Hernan Moscoso Boedo found evidence of similar trends and on a global scale since 2007.</p><p>They analyzed World Bank data measuring smartphone penetration and teenage fertility rates in 128 countries.</p><p>They found that the decline in birth rates accelerated once smartphones became widely available—a phenomenon found across countries &quot;with fundamentally different healthcare, welfare, economic, and cultural environments.&quot;</p><p>This, they concluded, points to &quot;a common global technology shock.&quot;</p><p>Some academics remain skeptical. For example, teenage births in the United States have been falling since the early 1990s, long before the dawn of the smartphone.</p><p>Neither study examines how governments might utilize their findings.</p><p>Both rich and poorer countries are grappling with declining birth rates which lead to aging societies and a shrinking workforce—putting strain on social security systems and potentially dampening economic growth and productivity.</p><p>The Centers for Disease Control says US fertility rates are at an all-time low, while leading Asian economies all face the prospect of shrinking populations in the coming years.</p><p>China&#x27;s communist government abandoned its decades-long one-child policy in 2016, while Japan and South Korea have invested heavily in pro-natal policies with little impact.</p><p>The world&#x27;s poorest countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, often still have high birth rates, but middle-income countries like India and Brazil also face a fast-dropping fertility rates.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><strong><br/></strong></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEOS</strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PIYAFH0R6y0?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wwo823zgShE?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>A study published in May found that the decline in birth rates accelerated once smartphones became widely available -- a phenomenon found across countries "with fundamentally different healthcare, welfare, economic, and cultural environments."</p>

A study published in May found that the decline in birth rates accelerated once smartphones became widely available -- a phenomenon found across countries "with fundamentally different healthcare, welfare, economic, and cultural environments."

Killing the mood: Smartphones reduce birth rate, studies say

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Killing the mood: Smartphones reduce birth rate, studies say

Matthew Pennington,

Agence France-Presse

Published June 09, 2026 08:38 AM PHT

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Updated June 09, 2026 08:49 AM PHT

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Washington

United States

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fertility

smartphones

Agence France-Presse

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