How Rosie the Riveter led to the 1950s’ Baby Boom

The two decades following World War II were characterized by a massive upswing in birth rates in the US and other countries – the so-called ‘baby Boom’. While the traditional explanation of the Baby Boom is that families made up for babies that were delayed due to the war, in new research Matthias Doepke suggests an alternative explanation. He argues that the Baby Boom of the 1950s was fuelled by the crowding out of younger women from the labor force by older women who had gained work experience during the war. These younger women then got married and had babies earlier, and in greater numbers.