![]() ![]() They assume that fertility will tend to rise as male income rises, but fall when material aspirations increase and when female wages rise. Their focus has been primarily on three factors: male income, the female wage, and material aspirations (desired standard of living). Economists have attempted to develop a "unified theory" to explain both the boom and bust. Exhilaration and optimism after the war seemed to combine with a general feeling of affluence in a booming postwar economy, and generous provisions for returning GIs, to make young couples feel able and willing to support children (Bean Jones).īut this apparently positive relationship between income and fertility fails to explain why fertility rates then suddenly plummeted in the early 1960s, causing the "baby bust." There was a tendency at the time to attribute the decline to the introduction of the birth control pill in 1963-but it is generally acknowledged now that the pill merely facilitated a trend that originated several years earlier, in the late 1950s. But in addition younger women departed from a historic upward trend in female labor force participation in order to stay home and start families-a departure that lasted for nearly twenty years. (Total Fertility Rate is the number of births a woman would experience throughout her childbearing years, at current age-specific rates.) SOURCE: Vital Statistics and Natality, various years. birth rate and numbers of births in the United States. They account for most of the immediate 1946– 1947 "spike" in births associated with returningįigure 1 A comparison of the historic U.S. For many older women these were births postponed during the Depression and World War II. The majority of it occurred not through an increase in family size but rather through a sharp decline in the proportion of women choosing to remain childless (Westoff). Coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s, the boomers were on the forefront of social change, including the later stages of the Civil Rights Movement, protesting the Vietnam War, and the second wave of the feminist movement.Īs the baby boomers age, the ratio of retired Americans compared to working Americans will increase significantly, placing considerable strain on Social Security, hospitals, and other government agencies designed to aid the elderly.There is no consensus regarding the cause of the baby boom: social scientists suggest a complex mixture of economic, social, and psychological factors. The generation born in the twenty years following World War II has been a defining force in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As teenagers, they dominated the popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s, buying clothing and records. ![]() As children, their growth drove the construction of new schools and suburbs. As babies, the boomers stimulated the market for toys, candy, and washing machines. ![]() As the baby boomers aged, manufacturers and advertisers targeted this demographic. An enormous generation of babies became an enormous generation of children, teenagers, young adults, adults, and (more recently) seniors. The baby boom was both a result of the healthy economy and also a major contributor to it. Americans finally could afford to have a lot of children, so they did. The high fertility rates closely correlate with a period of unprecedented economic prosperity, as well as optimism that the prosperity would last. Historians have suggested several reasons for increased family size after the war, from government propaganda to a yearning for the security offered by "normal" family life during an era when fear of the atomic bomb pervaded society. The World War II generation was the most marriage- and family-oriented in US history: 96.4% of women and 94.1% of men in this group got married and had more children, sooner after marriage and spaced closer together, than earlier generations. Postwar domesticity and its economic benefits On average, 4.24 million babies were born each year. Nine months after the war's end, the boom began in full force. This growth in marriages led to a record number of babies. GI Bill benefits promised the decent pay, access to good jobs, and affordable housing that made raising a family possible.Īfter the war, returning soldiers rushed to get married. Soldiers returning home from the war wanted to settle down into family life. A combination of factors produced this baby boom. The American birth rate skyrocketed following World War II. During the Great Depression, the American birthrate fell to its lowest point yet. As Americans moved off the farm and into the city, large families were a burden to support. Like many industrialized Western nations, in the early twentieth century the United States experienced a gradual decline in its birthrate. Following World War II, the United States experienced an increased birth rate between 19 called the “baby boom.” ![]()
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