For Our World in Data, Saloni Dattani and Lucas Rodés-Guirao analyzed the various factors that led to the baby boom, typically marked by the period following World War II. As usual, it’s not that simple.
The baby boom is typically defined as the time period between 1946 and 1964. As an example, Brittanica’s entry on the baby boom states that it describes “the increase in the birth rate between 1946 and 1964”. Similarly, the US Census Bureau defines baby boomers as “those born between 1946 and 1964”, with the common belief that the baby boom started immediately after World War II.
But as the chart below shows, the rise began earlier.
Birth rates in the United States had been falling in the early twentieth century, and the decline began to slow down at the end of the 1920s. Then, in the late 1930s, they turned around and began to rise, and this continued during parts of World War II. At the end of the war, they surged, but this was part of a multi-decadal increase.
