In a message dated 1/30/03 8:30:04 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >Thanks for the accurate data. Elsewhere, I have read that the pre-war >baby > >bust began in the mid-1920's--before the great depression--and so could >not > >have been entirely a result of the difficult times of the '30's. If it > >isn't too much trouble, can you either confirm or disconfirm this > >claim?~Alypius
Historical Statistics contains fertility and birth rates going back only to 1940. Looking at live births (the data on which go back to 1909), the number seems to have risen more or less steadily from about 2.7 million in 1909 to 3 million in 1914 and then stayed around 3 million through about 1926, when it began to tail off to about 2.6 million in 1929 and finally down to 2.3 million in 1933. The number stayed around 2.3-2.4 million through 1937, and then around 2.5 million through 1940. It rose for the following three years: 2.7, 3.0 and 3.1. For 1944 the number fell back to around 2.9, and then rose to 3.4 in 1946, the first (and lowest) year of the Baby Boom. The number rose to over 4 million for the years 1955 through 1964, and even in 1965-1970 (the last year of the data in the Bicentenial edition of Historical Statistics) always remained about 3.5 million. DBL
