PARIS: Add birth control to the list of things an iPhone can do: The introduction of Apple’s smartphone in 2007 helped lower US fertility rates, especially among teens and young adults, a new paper concludes. Why it matters: Researchers and policymakers have been scrambling to pinpoint why exactly birth rates are falling in the US and around the world.
Smartphones and the rise of social media are hardly the sole factor — birth control access and economic concerns like child care and housing costs are also debated — but the paper offers some intriguing evidence that helps explain the overall trend. The fertility rate started falling in 2007, and initially economists believed this was due to the financial crisis, as people tend to have fewer babies in bad economic times.
