Personally, it seems conspicuous that one of the largest drops in 5-8 and 8-18 occurred in 2023-2024, right when the world experienced a layoff surge [1] and sites like HN noted a significant drop in hiring [2].

"enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot"

2023 to 2024, 5 to 8: 75.3 to 64.7

2023 to 2024, 8 to 18: 43.4 to 34.6

~250,000 layoffs @ ~1300 companies in 2023 [1]. Add another 100,000 and 1,000 if you take late 2022. And layoffs.fyi just tracks tech layoffs.

The WARN database has similar results. Been averaging 300-400 a month since January 2023, vs ~100 / month in the 2021-2022 timeframe. [3]

That's a lot of dislocation, moving to find jobs, household chaos, school shifting, and parents with different priorities.

[1] "Layoff Charts Tab" https://layoffs.fyi

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1dvdssj/oc...

[3] https://layoffdata.com/