FYS The Fifties

As many of us already know, babies born between 1946 and 1964 are referred to as baby boomers. The birth rate increased about twenty percent in each of these years and averaged around 3.4 million babies born per year. Until reading about this growing population in Martin’s book, I was unaware of why so many children were born. The end of World War II plays one of the biggest factors. Young couples waited until the soldiers returned home to get married and start a family. These couples were also much younger than women who had children previously were. Instead of starting to have children in their late twenties, couples would be as young as eighteen and already be married and have a child. Not only were they young, these couples had multiple babies in a short span of time.

The baby boom also helped to boost the economy of the 1950s. With such an increase in the amount of babies being born, consumer products such as baby furniture, toys, and clothing were in high demand. Creating more child care and equipment for these facilities was also necessary. These changes did not stop once all of these babies grew into school aged children. Schools needed to be built to meet the capacity of all of the new students. Adding more children to schools also resulted in the creation of more classrooms. There was a high demand for teachers to take over these new classrooms. Another job that was booming was construction workers who were building all of these new schools. Supplies such as desks also needed to be built for the increase of students. With about four million children born in America each year now, none of this may seem like a big deal, but all of this consumerism was excellent for the economy and no one thought twice about the long term effects.

Even today in 2013, over sixty years after the boom began, American is still feeling the effects of so many babies being born at once. Each of these babies are now adults in their fifties or sixties. This is the age that many people retire and begin collecting a social security check monthly. Although it is not very much money, the amount of checks needed to be given out is at a higher rate than ever before. With so many people around this age, it is becoming impossible to give everyone a check each month. This means that by the time we are ready to retire, but most likely a lot sooner, we will not receive this benefit. When social security checks started to be given out, this major increase in the population was not even a consideration. This baby boom may have started out with many benefits such as boosting the economy, but that is no longer the case. It is not fair for our generation will have to suffer because of decisions made in the 1950s.

— Courtney M.