Netflix original titles released per year

Between 2016 and 2023, Netflix released more original titles per year and the US birth rate fell, and the two quantities have moved in inverse lockstep (r = -0.957) with an efficiency that feels almost unfair to both parties. One company made more content; a country made fewer children. It is, admittedly, a correlation one could run a sitcom about.

Netflix original releases grew from about 130 titles in 2016 to over 480 by 2022 as the company committed to building a content library it would own rather than license; the US total fertility rate fell from 1.82 in 2016 to 1.66 by 2022, a continuation of the decade-long decline driven by delayed marriage, housing costs, student debt, and cultural normalization of child-free adulthood. The two are not causally linked in any direct way — watching Stranger Things does not prevent pregnancies — but both are symptoms of an era in which Americans, particularly in the 25-40 demographic, have been substituting small, repeated pleasures (subscriptions, streams) for the large, irreversible commitments of their parents' generation.

A new season premieres. A maternity ward sees slightly fewer admissions. Both trends, long-running, continuing.