Editing Baby boomers (section)

=== Standards of living and economic prospects ===
{{multiple image
| align = left
| direction = vertical
| width = 250
| header = 
| image1 = Spelende kinderen - Children playing with toys (6437678745).jpg
| caption1 = Two Dutch children playing with toys (1958): The 1950s and 1960s were an economically prosperous time in the West.
| image2 =The Ladies' home journal (1948) (14765206281).jpg
| caption2 = A household refrigerator ([[Frigidaire]]) drawn for the [[Ladies' Home Journal]] (1948)
| image3 = '68 VW 1500.jpg
| caption3 = About 21 million [[Volkswagen Beetle]]s were sold, and they are a generational icon of the 1960s and 1970s.<ref>{{cite news|date=June 6, 2003|title=End of the road for the Beetle|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2969734.stm|access-date=October 10, 2020|archive-date=August 6, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070806043625/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2969734.stm|url-status=live}}</ref>
| image4 = Factory Hand at Ford 10,Phtograh Taken by Jun Miki,1954.jpg
| caption4 = An automotive factory worker with his family, car, and home in 1954
| total_width = 
}}
After the Second World War, the United States offered massive financial assistance to Western European nations in the form of the [[Marshall Plan]] to rebuild themselves and to extend U.S. economic and political influence. The Soviet Union did the same for Eastern Europe with the [[Comecon|Council for Mutual Economic Assistance]]. Western Europe had considerable economic growth, due to both the Marshall Plan and initiatives aimed at European integration, starting with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in 1951 and the European Community in 1957–58.<ref>{{Cite book|last=National Geographic|title=Essential Visual History of the World|publisher=National Geographic Society|year=2007|isbn=978-1-4262-0091-5|pages=424–5}}</ref><ref name="Zeihan-2016" /> As a matter of fact, the Anglo-Americans spoke of the 'Golden Age' and French of '30 glorious years' (''les trente glorieuses'') continued economic growth. For the United States, the postwar economic expansion was a continuation of what had occurred during the war, but for Western Europe and Japan, the primary economic goal was to return to prewar levels of productivity and prosperity, and many managed to close the gap with the United States in productivity per work hour and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Full employment was reached on both sides of the Atlantic by the 1960s. In Western Europe, the average unemployment figure stood at 1.5% at that time. The [[Car|automobile]], already a common sight in North America, became so in Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe and Latin America. At the same time, governments around the world undertook the construction or expansion of [[public transport]]ation networks at a rate never before seen.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995" />

Many items previously deemed luxurious, such as the [[Washing machine|laundry machine]], the [[dishwasher]], the [[refrigerator]], and the [[telephone]], entered mass production for the average consumer. The average person could live like the upper class in the previous generation. Technological advances made before, during, and after the war, such as plastics, television,  [[magnetic tape]], [[transistor]]s, [[integrated circuit]]s, and [[laser]]s, played a key role in the tremendous improvements in the standards of living for the average citizen in the developed world.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995" /><ref name="Kakalios-2010">{{Cite book |last=Kakalios |first=James |title=The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics: A Math-free Exploration of the Science that Made Our World |publisher=Gotham Books |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-592-40479-7 |location=New York |chapter=Afterword: Journey into Mystery |author-link=James Kakalios}}</ref> This was a time of optimism, economic prosperity, and a growing middle class.<ref name="Twenge-2023a">{{Cite book |last=Twenge |first=Jean |title=Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What The Mean for America's Future |publisher=Atria Books |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-9821-8161-1 |location=New York |chapter=Chapter 2: Silents}}</ref> In some instances, the rate of technological change was so rapid even when compared to optimistic projections, so much so that some social theorists of the day warned of boredom for the [[housewife]].<ref name="Kakalios-2010" /> In reality, it paved the way for a more individualistic culture and women's emancipation, something the Baby Boomers would push for when they came of age during the late 1960s and 1970s. It was also one of the reasons why the baby boom lasted for as long as it did; housekeeping and child-rearing became less onerous for women.<ref name="Twenge-2023a" /> Nevertheless, after 1945, because [[Child labour|child labor]] had been virtually eradicated in the West, married women from families of modest means had to join the work force.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1996" /> As [[Louise A. Tilly|Louise Tilly]] and [[Joan Wallach Scott|Joan Scott]] explain, "in the past children had worked so that their mothers could remain at home fulfilling domestic and reproductive responsibilities. Now when families needed additional income, mothers worked instead of children."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Tilly |first1=Louise |title=Women Work & Family |last2=Scott |first2=Joan |publisher=Rutledge |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-415-90262-5 |location=London |pages=219}}</ref>

Demand for housing exploded. Governments both in the East and the West massively subsidized housing with many [[public housing]] projects in urban areas in the form of high-rise apartment buildings. In many cases, this came at the cost of destroying historical sites.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995" /> As standards of living continued to climb, decentralization took root, and [[suburb]]an communities began developing their own entertainment quarters and [[shopping mall]]s.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1996" />

Public health improved, too, with vaccination programs playing an important role. In the United Kingdom, for example, the introduction of vaccines against [[poliomyelitis]], [[measles]], and [[Whooping cough|pertussis]] (whooping cough) in the 1950s and 1960s caused infection rates to plummet, albeit with some upticks due to [[vaccine hesitancy]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pollard |first1=Andrew J. |last2=Bijker |first2=Else M. |date=December 22, 2020 |title=A guide to vaccinology: from basic principles to new developments |journal=Nature Reviews Immunology |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=83–100|doi=10.1038/s41577-020-00479-7 |pmid=33353987 |pmc=7754704 }}</ref> In the United States, vaccination against measles resulted in not only falling childhood mortality rates but also other positive life outcomes such as rising family income.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Chuard |first1=Caroline |last2=Schwandt |first2=Hannes |last3=Becker |first3=Alexander D. |last4=Haraguchi |first4=Masahiko |date=July 2022 |title=Economic vs. Epidemiological Approaches to Measuring the Human Capital Impacts of Infectious Disease Elimination |url=http://www.nber.org/papers/w30202 |journal=NBER Working Papers |series=Working Paper Series |publisher=National Bureau of Economic Research |issue=30202|doi=10.3386/w30202 |hdl=10419/263636 }}</ref> In the West, average life expectancy increased by about seven years between the 1930s and 1960s.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995" />

Prosperity was taken for granted. Indeed, for many young people who came of age after 1945, the interwar experience of mass unemployment and stable or falling prices was confined to the history books. Full employment and inflation were the norm.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995">{{Cite book|last=Hobsbawn|first=Eric|title=The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991|publisher=Abacus|year=1995|isbn=978-0-349-10671-7|chapter=Chapter Nine: The Golden Years|author-link=Eric Hobsbawm}}</ref> The new-found wealth allowed many Western governments to finance generous welfare programs. By the 1970s, all industrialized capitalist nations had become welfare states. Six of them—Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, West Germany, and Italy—spent more than 60% of their national budgets on welfare. When the 'Golden Age' came to an end, such government largess proved problematic.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995" />

In fact, the 'Golden Age' finally petered out in the 1970s,<ref name="Zeihan-2016" /> as automation started eating away jobs at the low to medium skill levels,<ref name="Hobsbawn-1996" /> and as the first waves of people born after the Second World War entered the workplace en masse.<ref name="Macunovich-2015">{{Cite news|last=Macunovich|first=Diane J.|date=September 8, 2015|title=Baby booms and busts: how population growth spurts affect the economy|work=The Conversation|url=https://theconversation.com/baby-booms-and-busts-how-population-growth-spurts-affect-the-economy-46056|access-date=November 14, 2020|archive-date=November 14, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114162256/https://theconversation.com/baby-booms-and-busts-how-population-growth-spurts-affect-the-economy-46056|url-status=live}}</ref> In the United States, at least, the onset of a recession—as defined by the [[National Bureau of Economic Research]]—typically occurred within a few years of a peak in the rate of change of the young-adult population, both positive and negative, and indeed, the recession of the early 1970s took place shortly after the growth of people in their early 20s peaked in the late 1960s.<ref name="Macunovich-2015" /> Western capitalist nations slid into recessions during the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. Although the collective GDP of these nations continued to grow until the early 1990s, so much so that they became much wealthier and more productive by that date, unemployment, especially youth unemployment, exploded in many industrialized countries. In the European Community, the average unemployment rate stood at 9.2% by the late 1980s, despite the deceleration of population growth. Youth unemployment during the 1980s was over 20% in the United Kingdom, more than 40% in Spain, and around 46% in Norway. Generous welfare programs alleviated the potential of social unrest, though Western governments found themselves squeezed by a combination of falling tax revenue and high state spending.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1996c">{{Cite book|last=Hobsbawn|first=Eric|title=The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991|publisher=Abacus|year=1996|isbn=978-0-349-10671-7|chapter=Chapter Fourteen: The Crisis Decades}}</ref> People born during the baby bust due to the Great Depression in the 1930s found themselves in an abundance of employment opportunities as they entered the workforce in the 1950s. In fact, they could expect to achieve parity with their fathers' wages at the entrance level. This, however, was not the case for the postwar generation. By the mid-1980s, people could only expect to make a third of what their fathers made as new entrants to the labor force.<ref name="Macunovich-2015" />

The pace of economic growth in the 1960s was understood to be unprecedented. In the long-term view, though, it was just another upswing in the [[Kondratiev wave|Kondratiev cycle]] (see figure), much like the mid-[[Victorian era|Victorian]] boom or the ''[[Belle Époque]]'' from around 1850 to 1873 in Britain and France, respectively. Globally, agricultural output doubled between the early 1950s and early 1980s—more than that in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia—while the fishing industry tripled its catches.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995" />[[File:Kondratieff Wave-HQ.png|thumb|440x440px|Schematic diagram of the Kondratiev wave|right]]Communist nations, especially the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states, grew considerably, too. Heretofore agrarian states such as Bulgaria and Romania began to industrialize. By the 1960s, though, the growth of the communist states faltered compared to the capitalist industrialized countries.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995" /> By the 1980s, the economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe became stagnant. This was, however, not the case in the newly industrializing economies such as China or South Korea, whose process of industrialization began much later, nor was it in Japan.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1996c" />

The developing world achieved significant growth during the 1950s and 1960s, though it never quite reached the level of affluence of industrialized societies. The populations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America boomed between 1950 and 1975. Food production comfortably outpaced population growth. As a consequence, this period saw no major famines other than cases due to armed conflict and politics, which did happen in Communist China.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1995" /> People who experienced the [[Great Chinese Famine|Great Famine of China]] (1958–1961) as toddlers were noticeably shorter than those who did not. The Great Famine killed up to 30 million people and massively reduced China's economic output.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Gray|first=Richard|date=March 20, 2019|title=What happens when we run out of food?|url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190319-what-happens-when-the-food-runs-out|access-date=October 1, 2020|website=BBC Future|archive-date=September 24, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924011716/https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190319-what-happens-when-the-food-runs-out|url-status=live}}</ref> But before the Famine, China's agricultural output increased 70% from the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 to 1956, according to official statistics. Chairman [[Mao Zedong]] introduced a plan for the rapid industrialization of his country, the [[Great Leap Forward]]. Steel production, mainly from flimsy household furnaces, tripled between 1958 and 1960, but fell to a level lower than that at the start of the Great Leap Forward by 1962. Rural life—China was a predominantly rural society at this point in history—including family affairs, was collectivized. Women were recruited to the workplace, that is, the fields, while the government provided them with nursery and childcare services. In general, monetary income was replaced by six basic services: food, healthcare, education, haircuts, funerals, and movies. Mao's plan was quickly abandoned, not just because it failed, but also because of the Great Famine. Yet despite the disastrous results of [[Maoism|Maoist]] policies, by the standards of the developing world, China was not doing so poorly. By the mid-1970s, China's food consumption measured in calories was just above the global median and the nation's life expectancy grew steadily, interrupted only by the famine years.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1996d">{{Cite book|last=Hobsbawn|first=Eric|title=The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991|publisher=Abacus|year=1996|isbn=978-0-349-10671-7|chapter=Chapter Sixteen: End of Socialism}}</ref>

Between 1960 and 1975, the Chinese mainland's growth was fast, but lagged behind the [[Japanese economic miracle|growth of Japan]] and the rise of the [[Four Asian Tigers]] ([[South Korea]], [[Taiwan]], [[Hong Kong]], and [[Singapore]]) grew even faster.<ref name="Hobsbawn-1996d" />

{{Clear}}