DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Birth Quake

The Baby Boom and Its Aftershocks

Diane J Macunovich author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:The University of Chicago Press

Published:10th Jun '02

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Birth Quake cover

Between 1965 and 1985, the Western world - and the United States in particular - experienced a staggering amount of social and economic change. In Birth Quake, Diane J. Macunovich argues that the common thread underlying all these changes was the post-World War II baby boom - in particular, the passage of the baby boomers into young adulthood. Macunovich focuses on the pervasive effects of changes in "relative cohort size," the ratio of young to middle-aged adults, as masses of young people tried to achieve the standard of living to which they had become accustomed in their parents' homes despite dramatic reductions in their earning potential relative to that of their parents. Macunovich presents the results of detailed empirical analyses that illustrate how varied and important cohort effects can be on a wide range of economic indicators, social factors, and even on more tumultuous events including the stock market crash of 1929, the "oil shock" of 1973, and the "Asian flu" of the 1990s. Birth Quake demonstrates that no discussion of business or economic trends can afford to ignore the effects of population.

"A brilliant, lucid analysis of the multiple effects of the post-World War II baby boom....Indeed, in Macunovich's capable hands, it is clear that the baby boom was among the most powerful and complex forces shaping the economic history of the United States in the late 20th century." - Michael Edelstein, Queens College and the Graduate Center, Cuny

ISBN: 9780226500836

Dimensions: 24mm x 16mm x 2mm

Weight: 567g

314 pages