mid-20th century baby boom

Economist and demographer Richard Easterlin in his "Twentieth Century American Population Growth" (2000), explains the growth pattern of the American population in the 20th century by examining the fertility rate fluctuations and the decreasing mortality rate. Easterlin attempts to prove the cause of the baby boom and baby bust by the "relative income" theory, despite the various other theories that these events have been attributed to. The "relative income" theory suggests that couples choose to have children based on a couple's ratio of potential earning power and the desire to obtain material objects. This ratio depends on the economic stability of the country and how people are raised to value material objects. The "relative income" theory explains the baby boom by suggesting that the late 1940s and the 1950s brought low desires to have material objects, because of the Great Depression and World War II, as well as plentiful job opportunities (being a post-war period). These two factors gave rise to a high relative income, which encouraged high fertility. Following this period, the next generation had a greater desire for material objects, however, an economic slowdown in the United States made jobs harder to acquire. This resulted in lower fertility rates causing the Baby Bust.See Richard A. Easterlin, Birth and Fortune: The Impact of Numbers on Personal Welfare (1987)

Jan Van Bavel and David S. Reher proposed that the increase in nuptiality (marriage boom) coupled with low efficiency of contraception was the main cause of the baby boom. They doubted the explanations (including the Easterlin hypothesis) which considered the post-war economic prosperity that followed deprivation of the Great Depression as main cause of the baby boom, stressing that GDP-birth rate association was not consistent (positive before 1945 and negative after) with GDP growth accounting for a mere 5 percent of the variance in the crude birth rate over the period studied by the authors.{{cite journal |last1=Van Bavel |first1=Jan |last2=Reher |first2=David S. |title=The Baby Boom and Its Causes: What We Know and What We Need to Know |journal=Population and Development Review |date=2013 |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=257–288 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00591.x }} Data shows that only in a few countries was there a significant and persistent increase in the marital fertility index during the baby boom, which suggests that most of the increase in fertility was driven by the increase in marriage rates.{{cite journal |last1=Sánchez-Barricarte |first1=Jesús J. |title=Measuring and explaining the baby boom in the developed world in the mid-20th century |journal=Demographic Research |date=2018 |volume=38 |pages=1203–1204 |doi=10.4054/DemRes.2018.38.40 |url=https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol38/40/38-40.pdf|doi-access=free }}

Jona Schellekens claims that the rise in male earnings that started in the late 1930s accounts for most of the rise in marriage rates and that Richard Easterlin's hypothesis according to which a relatively small birth cohort entering the labor market caused the marriage boom is not consistent with data from the United States.{{cite journal |last1=Schellekens |first1=Jona |title=The Marriage Boom and Marriage Bust in the United States: An Age-period-cohort Analysis |journal=Population Studies |date=2017 |volume=71 |issue=1 |pages=65–82|pmid=28209083 |doi=10.1080/00324728.2016.1271140 |s2cid=41508881 }}

Matthias Doepke, Moshe Hazan, and Yishay Maoz all argued that the baby boom was mainly caused by the alleged crowding out from the labor force of females who reached adulthood during the 1950s by females who started to work during the Second World War and did not quit their jobs after the economy recovered.{{cite journal |last1=Doepke |first1=Matthias |last2=Hazan |first2=Moshe |last3=Maoz |first3=Yishay D. |title=The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis |journal=Review of Economic Studies |date=2015 |volume=82 |issue=3 |pages=1031–1073 |doi=10.3386/w13707 |doi-access=free }} Andriana Bellou and Emanuela Cardia promote a similar argument, but they claim women who entered the labor force during the Great Depression crowded out women who participated in the baby boom.{{cite journal |last1=Bellou |first1=Andriana |last2=Cardia |first2=Emanuela |date=2014 |title=Baby-Boom, Baby-Bust and the Great Depression |citeseerx=10.1.1.665.133 }} Glenn Sandström disagrees with both variants of this interpretation based on the data from Sweden showing that an increase in nuptiality (which was one of the main causes of an increase in fertility) was limited to economically active women. He pointed out that in 1939 a law prohibiting the firing of a woman when she got married was passed in the country.{{cite journal |last1=Sandström |first1=Glenn |title=A reversal of the socioeconomic gradient of nuptiality during the Swedish mid-20th-century baby boom |journal=Demographic Research |date=November 2017 |volume=37 |pages=1625–1658 |doi=10.4054/DemRes.2017.37.50 |url=https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol37/50/37-50.pdf|doi-access=free }}

Greenwood, Seshadri, and Vandenbroucke ascribe the baby boom to the diffusion of new household appliances that led to reduction of costs of childbearing.{{cite journal |last1=Greenwood |first1=Jeremy |last2=Seshadri |first2=Ananth |last3=Vandenbroucke |first3=Guillaume |title=The Baby Boom and Baby Bust |journal=American Economic Review |date=2005 |volume=95 |issue=1 |pages=183–207 |doi=10.1257/0002828053828680}} However Martha J. Bailey and William J. Collins criticize their explanation on the basis that improvement of household technology began before baby boom, differences and changes in ownership of appliances and electrification in U.S. counties are negatively correlated with birth rates

during baby boom, that the correlation between cohort fertility of the relevant women and access to electrical service in early adulthood is negative, and that Amish also experienced the baby boom.{{cite journal |last1=Bailey |first1=Martha J. |last2=Collins |first2=William J. |title=Did Improvements in Household Technology Cause the Baby Boom? Evidence from Electrification, Appliance Diffusion, and the Amish |journal=American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics |date=2011 |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=189–217 |doi=10.1257/mac.3.2.189|s2cid=154327125 |url=http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/app/2009-0130_app.pdf }}

Judith Blake and Prithwis Das Gupta point out the increase in ideal family size in the times of baby boom.{{cite journal |last1=Blake |first1=Judith |last2=Das Gupta |first2=Prithwis |title=Reproductive Motivation Versus Contraceptive Technology: Is Recent American Experience an Exception? |journal=Population and Development Review |date=December 1975 |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=229–249 |doi=10.2307/1972222 |jstor=1972222}}

Peter Lindert partially attributed the baby boom to the extension of income tax to most of the US population in the early 1940s and newly created tax exemptions for children and married couples creating a new incentive for earlier marriage and higher fertility.{{cite book |last1=Lindert |first1=Peter H. |title=Fertility and Scarcity in America |url=https://archive.org/details/fertilityscarcit0000lind |url-access=registration |date=1978 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, New Jersey, USA |isbn=9781400870066}} It is proposed that because the taxation was progressive the baby boom was more pronounced among the richer population.{{cite journal |last1=Zhao |first1=Jackie Kai |title=War Debt and the Baby Boom |publisher=Society for Economic Dynamics|citeseerx=10.1.1.205.8899 }}

In the United States and Canada, the baby boom was among the largest in the world.{{cite journal |last1=Van Bavel |first1=Jan |last2=Reher |first2=David S. |title=The Baby Boom and Its Causes: What We Know and What We Need to Know |journal=Population and Development Review |date=2013 |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=264–265 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00591.x }} In 1946, live births in the U.S. surged from 222,721 in January to 339,499 in October. By the end of the 1940s, about 32 million babies had been born, compared with 24 million in the 1930s. In 1954, annual births first topped four million and did not drop below that figure until 1965, by which time four out of ten Americans were under the age of 20.Figures in Landon Y. Jones, "Swinging 60s?" in Smithsonian Magazine, January 2006, pp 102–107. As a result of the baby boom and traditional gender roles, getting married immediately after high school became commonplace and women increasingly encountered tremendous pressure to marry by the age of 20. A joke emerged at the time around comedic speculation that women were going to college to earn their MRS degree due to the increased marriage rate.{{cite web | url = https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_mrs.html | title = People & Events: Mrs. America: Women's Roles in the 1950s | publisher=PBS | access-date = July 22, 2008}}

The baby boom was stronger among American Catholics than among Protestants.{{cite journal |last1=Westoff |first1=Charles F. |last2=Jones |first2=Elise F. |title=The end of "Catholic" fertility |journal=Demography |date=1979 |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=209–217 |doi=10.2307/2061139|jstor=2061139 |pmid=456702 |doi-access=free }}

The exact beginning and end of the baby boom is debated. The U.S. Census Bureau defines baby boomers as those born between mid-1946 and mid-1964, although the U.S. birth rate began to increase in 1941, and decline after 1957. Deborah Carr considers baby boomers to be those born between 1944 and 1959,{{cite journal|last=Carr|first=Deborah|title=The Psychological Consequences of Work-Family Trade-Offs for Three Cohorts of Men and Women|journal=Social Psychology Quarterly|date=2002|volume=65|issue=2|pages=103–124|url=http://midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/32.pdf|doi=10.2307/3090096|jstor=3090096}} while Strauss and Howe place the beginning of the baby boom in 1943.{{cite book |last1=Strauss |first1=William |last2=Howe |first2=Neil |title=Generations: the history of America's future, 1584 to 2069 |date=1991 |publisher=William Morrow & Co |isbn=0688119123 |page=[https://archive.org/details/generationshisto00stra_0/page/85 85] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/generationshisto00stra_0/page/85 }} In Canada the baby boom is usually defined as occurring from 1947 to 1966. Canadian soldiers were repatriated later than American servicemen, and Canada's birthrate did not start to rise until 1947. Most Canadian demographers prefer to use the later date of 1966 as the boom's end year in that country. The later end to the boom in Canada than in the US has been ascribed to a later adoption of birth control pills.The dates 1946 to 1962 are given in Doug Owram, Born at the right time: a history of the baby boom generation (1997)David Foot, Boom, Bust and Echo: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the 21st Century (1997) see {{Cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060623.dates24/BNStory/BabyBoomers/home|title=By definition: Boom, bust, X and why|last=Pearce|first=Tralee|date=June 24, 2006|work=The Globe and Mail|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060807071559/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060623.dates24/BNStory/BabyBoomers/home|archive-date=August 7, 2006|url-status=dead}}

In the United States, more babies were born during the seven years after 1948 than in the previous thirty, causing a shortage of teenage babysitters. At one point during this period, Madison, New Jersey only had fifty babysitters for its population of 8,000, dramatically increasing demand for sitters. In 1950, out of every $7 that a California couple spent to go to the movies, $5 went to paying a babysitter.{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/babysitterameric0000form | url-access=registration | title=Babysitter: An American History | publisher=New York University Press | author=Forman-Brunell, Miriam | year=2009 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/babysitterameric0000form/page/49 49]–50 | isbn=978-0-8147-2759-1}}

France and Austria experienced the strongest baby booms in Europe. In contrast to most other countries, the French and Austrian baby booms were driven primarily by an increase in marital fertility.{{cite journal|last1=Sánchez-Barricarte|first1=Jesús J.|date=2018|title=Measuring and explaining the baby boom in the developed world in the mid-20th century|url=https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol38/40/38-40.pdf|journal=Demographic Research|volume=38|pages=1203–1204|doi=10.4054/DemRes.2018.38.40|doi-access=free}} In the French case, pronatalist policies were an important factor in this increase.{{cite journal|last1=Calot|first1=Gérard|last2=Sardon|first2=Jean-Paul|date=1998|title=La vraie histoire du baby boom|journal=Sociétal|volume=16|pages=41–44}} Weaker baby booms occurred in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands.{{cite journal|last1=Frejka|first1=Tomas|date=2017|title=The Fertility Transition Revisited: A Cohort Perspective|url=https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/54258/ssoar-cpos-2017-frejka-The_Fertility_Transition_Revisited_A.pdf|journal=Comparative Population Studies|volume=42|page=97|doi=10.12765/CPoS-2017-09en|s2cid=55080460 }}

In the United Kingdom the baby boom occurred in two waves. After a short first wave of the baby boom during the war and immediately after, peaking in 1946, the United Kingdom experienced a second wave during the 1960s, with a peak in births in 1964 and a rapid fall after the Abortion Act 1967 came into force.Office for National Statistics [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2017 Births in England and Wales: 2017]

The baby boom in Ireland began during the Emergency declared in the country during the Second World War.{{cite web|title=Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Marriages, Births and Deaths in Ireland 1952|url=https://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/birthsdm/archivedreports/P-VS_1952.pdf|access-date=February 15, 2019|website=Central Statistics Office}} Laws on contraception were restrictive in Ireland, and the baby boom was more prolonged in this country. Secular decline of fertility began only in the 1970s and particularly after the legalization of contraception in 1979. The marriage boom was even more prolonged and did not recede until the 1980s.{{cite journal|last1=Coleman|first1=D. A.|date=1992|title=The Demographic Transition in Ireland in International Context|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/79p053.pdf|journal=Proceedings of the British Academy|volume=79|page=65}}

The baby boom was very strong in Norway and Iceland, significant in Finland, moderate in Sweden and relatively weak in Denmark.

Baby boom was absent or not very strong in Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain. There were however regional variations in Spain, with a considerable baby boom occurring in regions such as Catalonia.{{cite journal |last1=Cabré |first1=Anna |last2=Torrents |first2=Àngels |title=La Elevada nupcialidad como posible desencadenante de la transición demográfica en Cataluña |date=1990 |pages=3–4 |url=https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/worpap/1990/184657/papersdemografia_a1990n44iSPA.pdf}}

There was a strong baby boom in Czechoslovakia, but it was weak or absent in Poland, Bulgaria, Russia, Estonia and Lithuania, partly as a result of the Soviet famine of 1946–1947.{{cite journal |last1=Frejka |first1=Tomas |title=The Fertility Transition Revisited: A Cohort Perspective |journal=Comparative Population Studies |date=2017 |volume=42 |page=100 |doi=10.12765/CPoS-2017-09en |s2cid=55080460 |url=https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/54258/ssoar-cpos-2017-frejka-The_Fertility_Transition_Revisited_A.pdf}}

The volume of baby boom was the largest in the world in New Zealand and second-largest in Australia. Like the US, the New Zealand baby boom was stronger among Catholics than Protestants.{{cite journal|last1=Mol|first1=Hans|date=1967|title=Religion in New Zealand|url=http://www.persee.fr/doc/assr_0003-9659_1967_num_24_1_2637|journal=Archives de sciences sociales des religions|volume=24|page=123}}

The author and columnist Bernard Salt places the Australian baby boom between 1946 and 1961.{{Cite book|last=Salt|first=Bernard|title=The Big Shift|publisher=Hardie Grant Books|year=2004|isbn=978-1-74066-188-1|location=South Yarra, Vic.}}{{cite journal|last1=Head|first1=Neil|last2=Arnold|first2=Peter|date=November 2003|title=Book Review: The Big Shift|url=http://clrc.gov.au/agd/EMA/rwpattach.nsf/viewasattachmentpersonal/(C86520E41F5EA5C8AAB6E66B851038D8)~1103BookreviewNotesfield.pdf/$file/1103BookreviewNotesfield.pdf|url-status=bot: unknown|journal=The Australian Journal of Emergency Management|volume=18|issue=4|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090305125344/http://clrc.gov.au/agd/EMA/rwpattach.nsf/viewasattachmentpersonal/(C86520E41F5EA5C8AAB6E66B851038D8)~1103BookreviewNotesfield.pdf/$file/1103BookreviewNotesfield.pdf|archive-date=March 5, 2009}}

Many countries outside the west (among them Morocco, China and Turkey) also witnessed the baby boom.{{cite journal |last1=Reher |first1=David |last2=Requena |first2=Miguel |title=The mid-twentieth century fertility boom from a global perspective |journal=The History of the Family |date=2014 |volume=20 |issue=3 |pages=420–445 |doi=10.1080/1081602X.2014.944553 |s2cid=154258701 }} The baby boom in Mongolia is probably explained by improvement in health and living standards related to the adoption of technologies and modernisation.{{cite journal |last1=Spoorenberg |first1=Thomas |title=Reconstructing historical fertility change in Mongolia: Impressive fertility rise before continued fertility decline |journal=Demographic Research |date=2015 |volume=33 |pages=841–870 |doi=10.4054/DemRes.2015.33.29 |url=https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol33/29/33-29.pdf|doi-access=free }}

There was also a baby boom in Latin American countries, excepting Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. An increase in fertility was driven by a decrease in childlessness and, in most nations, by an increase in parity progression to second, third and fourth births. Its magnitude was largest in Costa Rica and Panama.{{cite journal |last1=Reher |first1=David |last2=Requena |first2=Miguel |title=Was there a mid-20th-century fertility boom in latin america? |journal=Revista de Historia Economica – Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History |date=2014 |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=319–350 |doi=10.1017/S0212610914000172|url=https://eprints.ucm.es/30993/1/Reher%20%26%20Reqeuna_Was%20there%20a%20mid%20revi.pdf |hdl=10016/29916 |s2cid=154726041 |hdl-access=free }}

• 1970s energy crisis
• Aging in the American workforce
• Counterculture of the 1960s
• History of the United States (1945–1964)
• Post-war displacement of Keynesianism
• Post-World War II economic expansion

• Barkan, Elliott Robert. From All Points: America's Immigrant West, 1870s–1952, (2007) 598 pages
• Barrett, Richard E., Donald J. Bogue, and Douglas L. Anderton. The Population of the United States 3rd Edition (1997) compendium of data
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• Easterlin, Richard A. Birth and Fortune: The Impact of Numbers on Personal Welfare (1987), by leading economist [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226180328 excerpt and text search]
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• Klein, Herbert S. A Population History of the United States. Cambridge University Press, 2004. 316 pp
• Macunovich, Diane J. Birth Quake: The Baby Boom and Its Aftershocks (2002) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226500837 excerpt and text search]
• Mintz Steven and Susan Kellogg. Domestic Revolutions: a Social History of American Family Life. (1988)
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