Could smartphones be to blame for falling birth rates?

John Burn-Murdoch, the chief data officer for The Financial Times, has theorized that the rise of smartphones could be to blame for falling birth rates around the globe.

Key Takeaways:

• In the majority of countries, the birth rate is below 2.1 children per woman, the number known as the "replacement rate" necessary to keep a population stable.

• Many experts are predicting there will be demographic and economic crises as a result.

• Burn-Murdoch argued that countries have experienced declines in birth rate after smartphones were introduced.

The Details:

In a new article for The Financial Times, Burn-Murdoch examined the issue of plummeting birth rates around the globe, and how they are falling across numerous demographics. It no longer seems to matter if a nation is wealthy or poor, how much or how little education the adults have, or any of the other numerous explanations previously offered. The replacement rate for most countries is far below the 2.1 children per woman needed to maintain the population.

"Almost all of the world is now affected. Until recently, ultra-low and rapidly falling birth rates were primarily a concern for rich countries, but many developing countries now have lower fertility rates than much wealthier ones," he said, and later added, "[A]cross a wide range of countries, the decline in births and coupling is much steeper among those with the least education and lowest incomes. By contrast the share of university graduates forming couples and having children is stable or even rising in some cases. Family formation, it seems, has become K-shaped."

He continued to point out numerous other issues, including housing, cultural changes, and the global financial crisis, but likewise repeatedly explained that they don't apply to all of the countries facing a demographic decline. Instead, data are pointing to another culprit: technology and, more specifically, smartphone usage. Burn-Murdoch explained:

Nathan Hudson and Hernan Moscoso-Boedo of the University of Cincinnati published a paper last month looking at birth rates through the lens of the rollout of 4G mobile networks in the US and UK.

The number of births fell first and fastest in the areas that received high-speed mobile connectivity earliest. The authors argue that smartphones have transformed how young people spend time with one another, sharply reducing in-person socialising and leading to the collapse in their fertility.

He continued:

For example, US, British and Australian birth rates for teens and young adults were broadly flat during the early 2000s but began to fall markedly from 2007.

The same slide began in France and Poland around 2009, and in Mexico, Morocco and Indonesia around 2012. What had been steady declines in fertility in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal became precipitous drops between 2013 and 2015.

All of these inflection points coincided with the mass adoption of smartphones in local markets — as measured by Google searches for mobile apps.

In country after country the birth rate plunged after the introduction of smartphones, no matter what the previous trend was. The younger the age group, the more pronounced the downturn — a mirror image of smartphone usage patterns.

The issue is that being perpetually online has negative effects.

“To meet a person you are going to marry requires filtering through a lot of people,” demographer Lyman Stone said. “If you socialise much less, it takes you much longer to find a match if you find one at all. If you spend lots of time socialising with your peers in the real world, your standards [for a potential partner] are anchored in the real world. If you spend your time on Instagram, your standards are anchored to an artificial sense of what is normal.”

Time on social media is also said to diminish real-world relationships, which is why Stanford University’s Alice Evans told Burn-Murdoch that countries with more traditional cultures see the biggest declines after smartphones are introduced. “Instagram and TikTok enable young women across the world to bypass traditional authorities . . . raising their expectations for a relationship in a way their male counterparts are often not prepared for," Evans said.

The Big Picture:

Whatever the cause, there is no doubting how severe the global population decline is. Numerous countries are now seeing the lowest birth rates in recorded history, in places like Japan, Jamaica, Singapore, France, Poland, Taiwan, and the United States.

Alongside low birth rates are often large aging populations, leading to major economic problems. This creates a large number of retirees without workers to pay into the system, which then puts pressure on the country's health care, pension, and social services. This, then, leads to an economic crisis.

Given that assisted suicide and euthanasia are likewise being legalized around the world, it would not be surprising to see vulnerable populations, like the elderly, being pressured into euthanasia to save money, which has already begun occurring in Canada.