Mid-20th-century baby boom

The middle of the 20th century saw a big rise in how many babies were born in many countries, especially in the Western world. This time of many new babies is called the baby boom, and it started right after World War II. People born during this time are known as the baby boom generation, or baby boomers.

This increase in babies happened along with more people getting married. The main reason for more babies was that fewer families had no children, and more families decided to have a second child. In most Western countries, having three or more children became less common, but families with one or two children became more usual. The baby boom was especially noticeable among women who were educated and had jobs.

The baby boom came to an end in the 1960s and 1970s when the number of babies being born dropped a lot, a period demographers call the baby bust.

Causes

Richard Easterlin studied why the number of babies born went up and down in America during the 1900s. He thought it depended on jobs and how much money families could make. After World War II, jobs were easy to find, and people wanted fewer fancy things because of hard times during the Great Depression. This led many families to have more children.

Some other experts say that more people getting married, not just money, caused the baby boom. They found that in many places, more weddings happened, which led to more babies. Others think that women who worked in factories during the war kept their jobs, which changed what families wanted. There are many ideas about why this happened, and scientists are still learning more.

By region

Asia and Africa

Many countries outside of Europe, such as Morocco, China, and Turkey, also saw a big increase in births during this time. In Mongolia, this growth was likely because of better health and living conditions from new technologies and modern ways of life.

Europe

France and Austria had the biggest baby booms in Europe. Unlike most other places, these countries saw more babies born within marriages. In France, government policies that encouraged having children helped this increase. Smaller baby booms happened in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

In the United Kingdom, there were two waves of the baby boom. The first wave happened during and right after World War II, with the most births in 1946. The second wave was in the 1960s, with the highest number of births in 1964.

In Ireland, the baby boom started during World War II and lasted longer than in other places because laws about family planning were very strict. The number of marriages stayed high until the 1980s.

Norway and Iceland had strong baby booms, Finland had a noticeable increase, Sweden had a moderate boom, and Denmark had a weaker one.

Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain did not see big baby booms, although some parts of Spain, like Catalonia, did have a significant increase.

Czechoslovakia had a strong baby boom, but Poland, Bulgaria, Russia, Estonia, and Lithuania had weak or no baby boom, partly because of a severe famine in 1946–1947.

Latin America

Many Latin American countries had baby booms, except for Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. The increase in births was because fewer children were born without parents and more families had two, three, or four children. The largest booms happened in Costa Rica and Panama.

North America

The United States and Canada had some of the largest baby booms in the world. In the U.S., the number of births jumped sharply in 1946. By the end of the 1940s, about 32 million babies were born, compared to 24 million in the 1930s. In 1954, the number of births each year first went above four million and stayed there until 1965.

In the U.S., many people got married right after high school, and there was a lot of pressure for women to marry by age 20.

The exact years of the baby boom are debated. In the U.S., the Census Bureau says baby boomers were born between mid-1946 and mid-1964, but births started to rise in 1941 and fell after 1957. In Canada, the baby boom is usually from 1947 to 1966, because soldiers returned later and births did not start rising until 1947.

Oceania

New Zealand had the largest baby boom in the world, and Australia had the second-largest. In both countries, the boom was stronger among Catholic families than Protestant ones.