I can’t find a previous thread or article about this, and I can’t find a good info source.
Anybody got anything that would indicate if the birthrate dropped precipitously, let’s say between July 21, 1964 and August 21, 1964?
Does anyone track nationwide month-to-month birth records?
Go to the National Center for Health Statistics and download the pdf for “Vital Statistics of the United States 1964 Natality”.
Birthrate
1963 1964
May______22.0______21.3
June______22.2______21.7
July 21.8______21.4
August_ 21.5_____ 20.5
September__21.7_____ 20.9
Doesn’t look like much of a change, but then I don’t know much of statistics.
The post-war baby boom ended in 1964, but not because people stopped having sex. Actually, the first wave of Boomers (born in 1946) turned 18 that year, and thus officially became their own cohort for child-bearing demographics. Children born 1964-1982 were first called the “baby bust” generation and later “GenX.”
It’s purely a matter of luck that the usual definition for the Baby Boom (in the U.S., at least) happens to end in 1964. It was noticed within a couple years after World War II that the birth rate rose very quickly just as soon as the soldiers in the war had time to get back to the U.S. and began breeding. The birth rose for several years and then began slowly dropping again. Somewhat arbitrarily, it was decided that the Baby Boom ended in 1964, by which time the birth rate had dropped back down to the level it was at the end of World War II. It’s important to note that the term “Baby Boom” was not originally intended to name a generation of babies born between 1946 and 1964. It was thought of as an event in the lives of the parents of the babies born in that period. These parents could be anywhere in age between their late teens and their mid-forties when their babies were born. So the parents weren’t really part of a single generation themselves.
(Incidentally, the Baby Boom only lasted from 1946 to 1964 in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In Europe, for instance, the period of the Baby Boom was much shorter. There was a big increase in the birth rate there too, but the rate had dropped back down to World War II levels by the mid-1950’s.)
It was only in the 1960’s that people began to use the term “Baby Boomers” to designate all the people who had been born between 1946 and 1964. It was only then that people began to think of the group of people born at roughly the same time as being some sort of a common group with a common culture. Thinking of a single generation as having some sort of common culture different from older people in the same place is a big mental jump (and a rather dubious one, I think).
I don’t think Kennedy was responsible for the baby boom, if that’s where this is leading.
Yeah, but if all the rumors about his playing around are true, it wasn’t for lack of trying…
I’d say that the Pill probably had more to do with the end of the Baby Boom than anything else.
I’m not sure there even exists a “usual definition” for the baby boom. 1946 seems to suffice as a starting point, but I have seen ending points stated as anywhere from 1955 to 1967. That in itself increases my doubts about the usefulness of the whole concept.
RR
It should be emphasized that the Baby Boom was an anomalous event in all the countries where it occurred. In general, the birth rate was slowly dropping in every country in the world thoughout the twentieth century. In those countries where the Baby Boom happened, there was a period of no more than 18 years (and often less than 10 years) where the birth rate went back up for a while before going back down again. The Baby Boom happened because a large part of the population temporarily deferred having children. Once the deferred children were born, the population rate went back to its slow decrease. That’s why in certain parts of the world, like much of western Europe, the population is now slowly decreasing. In the U.S., if you could ignore immigration, the population would now be at a steady state.
With or without the pill, the birth rate would have dropped back down to the previous rates. People would just have found a different method of birth control. It now looks like it’s pretty inevitable. Once the standard of living reaches a certain level, the birth rate drops down to something close to replacement rate.
RiverRunner writes:
> I’m not sure there even exists a “usual definition” for the baby boom. 1946
> seems to suffice as a starting point, but I have seen ending points stated as
> anywhere from 1955 to 1967. That in itself increases my doubts about the
> usefulness of the whole concept.
Which is why I wrote:
> Somewhat arbitrarily, it was decided that the Baby Boom ended in 1964 . . .
1946 to 1964 is the most common definition that I’ve seen, but it’s endlessly argued over (and I’m not going to argue over it here).
Not trying to start an argument.
Just had a pet notion that the Baby Boom could have ended due to mass depression over such a jarring national moment, and was looking for solid data yea or nay.
The numbers don’t bear this concept out, so it’s nay.
Question answered. Thanks for the input, all.
The 1964 date kind of surprises me. I was born in '54 and always thought I was at the tail end of the baby boom. Learn something different everyday.
Where do you live, PictsiePat? In some countries other than the U.S. the Baby Boom did end in the mid-1950’s. And, as have stated, the definition of the Baby Boom is so vague that even some people in the U.S. sometimes claim that the Baby Boom ended in the mid-1950’s.