According to a study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, low sex drive has a new cause: climate change. The report also indicates that this problem is having a direct impact on birth rates in the United Sates.
The research suggests that people may feel less enthused to have sex when temperatures increase, which compromises the birth rates. They explain that birth rates have an enormous decline nine months after a particularly hot day, significantly to 0.7% as cooler days. This indicates that hot day either reduces fertility or less desire to have sex and even, it could be both.
“Extreme heat leads to a sizeable fall in births,” the researchers said. “Temperature extremes could affect coital frequency. It could affect hormone levels and sex drives. Alternatively, high temperatures may adversely affect reproductive health or semen quality on the male side or ovulation on the female side,” as said on the UK’s Independent post.
The authors of the study used vital statistics and other sources to determine how hot days, above 80 degrees or warmer, affected birth rates nine months later. They revealed that 0.4% less babies were born after that time, which means 1,165 fewer births per every hot day. Researchers concluded that hot days lead to about 100,000 fewer births in the U.S. annually.
Alan Barreca, lead author of the study and associate professor of economics at Tulane University said, “I wouldn’t say it is the end of human civilization, but I would suggest it is going to add to the cost of climate change.”
Even when the study is based on the two countries that have below-replacement birth rates, United States, and the United Kingdom, the study suggests that the consequences could be even more pronounced in the developing world.
Barreca said, “The decline in birth rates is a very serious issue for countries, like the United States and the UK, which have below-replacement birth rates. This will put a lot of strain on social insurance programmes, like social security, because it will create large imbalances in the make-up of the population.”
Researchers, based on the analysis of historical changes in the temperature-fertility relationship, suggests that the incorporation of air conditioning could offset the fertility costs of climate change.
Source: UK Independent