Question

The “baby boom” was one of the major demographic episodes of

the twentieth century. It is generally agreed to have started at the end of World

War II in 1945. Using any relevant calculations of growth rates or graphs of

population, assign a date to the end of the baby boom. Explain your method

and the reason for your choice.

Answer 1

Following World War II, the United States experienced a greatly elevated birth rate, adding on average 4.24 million new babies to the population every year between 1946 and 1964.There is some disagreement as to the precise beginning and ending dates of the post-war baby boom, but it is most often agreed to have begun in the years immediately after the war, though some place it earlier at the increase of births in 1941–1943. The boom started to decline as birth rates in the United States started to decline in 1958, though the boom would only grind to a halt 3 years later in 1961, 20 years after it began.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, when four out of ten Americans were under the age of 20.In the years after the war, the mood was now optimistic. During the war, unemployment ended and the economy greatly expanded; afterwards the country experienced vigorous economic growth until the 1970s.Constituting as much as 40% of the American population, baby boomers have exerted a strong pull on American culture at large, particularly during the social movements of the 1960s.

1909 1919 19291939 1949 1939 1909 1979 198919992009

US crude birth rates from 1909 to 2009. The red portion of the line denotes the baby boom generation. The smaller bump between 1976 and 2001 shows the baby boom "echo."