Baby boomer

A baby boomer is someone born in a period of increased birth rates, such as those during the economic prosperity that in many countries followed World War II. In the United States, demographers have put the generation's birth years at 1946 to 1964, despite the fact that the U.S. birth rate actually began to decline after 1957. William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their book Generations include those conceived by soldiers on leave during the war, putting the generation's birth years at 1943 to 1960. Howe and Strauss argue that persons born between 1961 and 1964 have political and cultural patterns very different from those born between 1955 and 1960 and fit into what those writers term the Thirteenth Generation or Generation X (also known as the Cold War generation) born between 1961 and 1981. As the influence of Strauss and Howe has grown, few people still accept Baby Boomers as including those born after 1961, although there are some who put the dates at 1946 to 1963 because of the number of significant "Gen-X" figures born in 1964, including Courtney Love and Eddie Vedder.

See also

• The Post-World War II Baby Boom
• Demographics
• Generation gap