Baby Boom

The Baby Boom generation includes persons born after the end of WWII (1945) but before the end of 1964. William Strauss and Neil Howe in their book Generations called this generation the Boom generation (they are no longer babies) and put their birth years at 1943 to 1960, not based on parental fecundity, but because of a common peer personality.

The Baby Boom generation is, in the nations affected, much larger than the prior and following generations, and the time of their young adulthood saw massive changes in attitudes to many social issues, including opposition to the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, mass political action for causes including war opposition but extending to civil rights and feminism amongst others, and radical upheavals in popular culture such as the maturity of rock and roll as an art form, an awareness of shared global crises, and a decline of deferential behaviour.

Boomer is short for Baby boomer.

See also Generation X, generation.

Mini baby boom

The year 2000 created a mini baby boom. It was believed that many factors contributed to the mini boom.

• many parents wanted to have a "millennium baby" because it was a once in a life time occasion.
• It was the year of "Golden Dragon" in 2000 according to Chinese zodiac. Chinese families around the world accelerated their decisions to give birth to a child in the special year for good omen.
• the preceding boom in stock market (i.e. the internet bubble) brought a fortune to many young professionals who were of child-bearing age, their newly gained wealth accelerated the decision to having a child early just to catch the special birth year.

It is believed that all these factors affected family planning decisions in many situations. Families might have postponed or brought forward their planned children to aim for childbirth during the "special" year.

Unlike the regular boomers who span a generation, the millennium babies outnumbered those born the year before and after 2000.

The sudden surge in population in one particular year puts a sudden strain on school systems. Special classes must be opened to accommodate the increase of students for one particular age. The impact will not be felt until the year 2005 when these millennium babies start going to school. By the year 2018, many colleges may have to change their student admission policies to cater for these mini-boomers.

Due to the relatively small population of these millennium babies, their social impact is expected to be much less than the Boomers and Generation X.

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See also: baby boom for a general discussion on the phenomenon.