American's birth rate has plunged. Are smartphones to blame?

A decades-long decline in the U.S. fertility rate has confounded policymakers and economists alike, with experts pointing to possible causes ranging from the economic fallout of the Great Recession to changing public attitudes about parenthood. Now, one economist is pointing to another factor: the iPhone. A new research paper by Middlebury College economist Caitlin Myers found that Apple's 2007 introduction of the iPhone accounted for 33% to 52% of the decline in the fertility rate. …