Abstract
The baby boom was an accident, a coincidence of events. Seventeen million more people were born between 1946 and 1964 than would have been born if the young American women of the postwar years had followed the traditions of their mothers. Without the extra births, those born between 1946 and 1964 would have grown up inconspicuously. Instead, the huge generation—now one-third of all Americans—changed the United States as much as any war, depression, president, or invention. For decades social scientists have been trying to explain why the baby boom happened. They might as well try to explain the hoola hoop—the baby boom was a freak storm of life, a baby fad sparked by the euphoria of victory in World War II.
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Notes
Advertisement, Life,2 June 1945, inside front cover.
Advertisement, Life, 13 August 1945, p. 1.
Advertisement, Life,4 June 1945, inside front cover.
Ibid.
Personal telephone conversation with National Center for Health Statistics, 8 August 1985.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 1 ( Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975 ), p. 49.
Joseph Veroff, Elizabeth Douvan, and Richard A. Kulka, The Inner American—A Self Portrait from 1957 to 1976 (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981 ), p. 147.
Edward L. Kain, “Surprising Singles,” American Demographics, August 1984, p. 19.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics,p. 64.
Ibid., p. 49.
Leonard Gross, “America’s Mood Today,” Look, 29 June 1965, p. 21.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Projections of the Population of the United States, by Age, Sex, and Race: 1983 to 2080,” Current Population Reports,Series P-25, No. 952, May 1984, Table 6.
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Leon F. Bouvier, “America’s Baby Boom Generation: The Fateful Bulge,” Population Bulletin, Volume 35, No. 1 ( Washington, D.C.: Population Reference Bureau, 1980 ), p. 5.
Richard A. Easterlin, Birth and Fortune—The Impact of Numbers on Personal Welfare (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1980), p. ix.
Norman B. Ryder, “A Model of Fertility by Planning Status,” Demography, Volume 15, No. 4, November 1978, p. 455.
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Bouvier, p. 11.
Gross, p. 21.
American Woman’s Dilemma,“ Life,16 June 1947, pp. 101–116.
Ibid., p. 110.
Changing Roles of Modern Marriage,“ Life,24 December 1956, p. 109.
Ibid., p. 116.
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique ( New York: Dell Publishing Company, Inc., 1963 ), p. 38.
Ibid., p. 44.
Barbara Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men-American Dreams and the Flight From Commitment ( New York: Anchor Books, 1983 ), p. 17.
Ibid., p. 18.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Money Income,” Table 11.
Fabian Linden, “The American Way To Get Ahead,” American Demographics, December 1986, p. 4.
Gross, p. 21.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Population Profile of the United States: 1982,” Current Population Reports, Special Studies, Series P-23, No. 130, December 1983, p. 54.
Cheryl Russell and Thomas G. Exter, “America at Mid-Decade,” American Demographics, January 1986, p. 29.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Education in the United States: 1940–1983,” Special Demographic Analysis, CDS-851, 1985, p. 46.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Educational Attainment in the United States: March 1981 and 1980,” Current Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 390, August 1984, p. 2.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Education,” p. 5.
Russell and Exter, p. 29.
National Center for Education Statistics, The Condition of Education, 1985 Edition (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), pp. 124, 128.
The Roper Organization, Roper Reports 85–2 ( New York: The Roper Organization, Inc., 1985 ).
American Council of Life Insurance and the Health Insurance Association of America, The Baby Boom Generation ( Washington, D.C.: American Council of Life Insurance and the Health Insurance Association of America, 1983 ), pp. 25–31.
Bouvier, p. 12.
Frank Levy and Richard C. Michel, “Are Baby Boomers Selfish?,” American Demographics, April 1985, p. 38.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1986, 106th edition (Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985 ), p. 737.
American Council on Education, National Norms for Entering College Freshmen—Fall 1967, ACE Research Reports, Volume 2, No. 7 ( Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1967 ), pp. 34–36.
American Council on Education and the University of California at Los Angeles, The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1982 (University of California, Los Angeles: Cooperative Institutional Research Program of the University of California and the American Council on Education, 1982), pp. 56–57, 62.
National Center for Education Statistics, High School Seniors: A Comparative Study of the Classes of 1972 and 1980, NCES 84–202, High School and Beyond, A National Longitudinal Study for the 1980s (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), pp. 11, 15.
Ibid., p. 25.
American Values: Change and Stability—A Conversation with Daniel Yankelovich,“ Public Opinion, December/January 1984, pp. 2–8.
American Council on Education, National Norms for Entering College Freshmen—Fall 1967,pp. 34–36; American Council on Education and the University of California at Los Angeles, The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1982,pp. 56–57, 62.
The House and Garden Louis Harris Study, “How the Baby Boom Generation is Living Now” (New York: Conde Nast Publications, Inc., 1981 ), p. 7.
Thomas J. Lueck, “Baby-Boomers: Reality vs. Dream,” The New York Times,6 March 1986, pp. Cl, C12.
Thomas F. Cash, Barbara A. Winstead, and Louis H. Janda, “The Great American Shape-Up,” Psychology Today, April 1986, pp. 30–37.
National Center for Health Statistics, “Provisional Data from the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Supplement to the National Health Interview Survey: United States, January-March 1985,” NCHS Advance Data,No. 113, 15 November 1985, p. 3.
Patricia Morrisroe, “Forever Young,” New York, 9 June 1986, p. 44.
Ibid.
From ‘Old’ to ’New’ to ’Classic’,“ USA Today,11 July 1985, p. B-1.
Bill Backer cited in Scott Kilman, “Coca-Cola Co. To Bring Back Its Old Coke,” The Wall Street Journal, 11 July 1985, p. 2.
Pamela G. Hollie, “Keeping New Coke Alive,” The New York Times, 20 July 1986, p. F6.
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© 1987 Cheryl Russell
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Russell, C. (1987). The Boom. In: 100 Predictions for the Baby Boom. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3468-0_2
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