ABSTRACT
It is appropriate that this book on the Baby Boomers at midlife includes a chapter on demographic characteristics, given that, at root, the Baby Boom was, and remains, a singular demographic event. Simply put, the Baby Boom was a fifteen-year splurge of births that emerged in the aftermath of World War II. It was a splurge because it represented a big reversal from long-term trends in fertility. A change, we might add, that was completely unexpected by those whose job it was to know these things (demographers). Ironically, despite this mistaken call, the Baby Boom phenomenon has probably done more than anything else to popularize demographic perspectives and approaches to understanding social change.
