Rufo & Lomez How Your iPhone Is Killing America’s Fertility Rate | Ep 36
Mar 31, 2026
Lyman Stone, a demographer at the Institute for Family Studies who analyzes fertility and family trends. He discusses why U.S. births have stalled near 1.6 and what that implies. He links smartphones and social media to reduced dating and marriage. He explores coordination problems, urban pressures, cultural exceptions, and policy ideas to raise births.
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Stated Fertility Preferences Predict Actual Outcomes
- Longitudinal data show stated fertility preferences at young ages predict later behavior, so expressed desires are not pure survey noise.
- Stone notes people who said they wanted zero tended to have zero and those wanting specific counts tended to realize them, especially if they married young.
Marriage Decline Is The Central Driver Of Fertility Drops
- Declining marriage rates closely track fertility declines; when marriage rises, births do too because most people want children within family contexts.
- Stone uses South Korea's recent marriage subsidy example: marriages rose after policy and births followed.
Technology And Labor Shifts Undermine Partnering
- Two global drivers likely explain marriage and fertility decline: skills-biased technical change hurting young men's economic prospects, and smartphones/social media reducing in-person socialization.
- Stone argues men in their 20s are harder to evaluate economically and phones replace many first-contact social rituals like first kisses and dinner parties.