The Baby Boom
History Summative: The Baby Boom
The Baby Boom was one of the most important events in Canadian history and continues to impact how we live our lives today. After World War 2 ended, between the years of 1945 and 1965, there was a huge increase in population known as the Baby Boom. The Baby Boom occurred because soldiers came home from war with a victory and were finally ready to start a family with their wives or girlfriends in a time when there was a good economy. In 1959, 20 percent of all women who were in their twenties had babies and the average family had three to four children (1). Around 1961, births per 1000 women aged 15-49 hit almost 4,000 (5). In total, more than 8.2 babies had been born during the baby boom in Canada (2). These statistics give you an indication about how densely and quickly the population increased and how this bulge in the population could not be ignored through the years. Many events in history have helped shape Canada into the country it is today, but nothing has made such an impact on how we have lived, live now, and will continue to live as much as the baby boom has.
The Baby Boom created an overwhelming demand for homes because of expanding families needing more room for their newborn children, this demand led to something called “Suburbia”. More than 1.1 million housing units were built in the 1950’s (3) to adjust to all of the new families who needed homes – this began the first decade of “urban sprawl”. There would also be a big huge demand for nurses, school teachers, doctors and such to take care of the huge amount of new kids born as a result of the Baby Boom. Canada’s economy had gone from making Bren Machine Guns just a few years earlier for the war to making baby carriages, baby clothes, new cars, and bunk beds for all the new children that had just recently entered into the world.
A few years later, during the 1950’s, when the “baby boomers” started to become teenagers, society had to adjust accordingly as well.
The Baby Boom was one of the most important events in Canadian history and continues to impact how we live our lives today. After World War 2 ended, between the years of 1945 and 1965, there was a huge increase in population known as the Baby Boom. The Baby Boom occurred because soldiers came home from war with a victory and were finally ready to start a family with their wives or girlfriends in a time when there was a good economy. In 1959, 20 percent of all women who were in their twenties had babies and the average family had three to four children (1). Around 1961, births per 1000 women aged 15-49 hit almost 4,000 (5). In total, more than 8.2 babies had been born during the baby boom in Canada (2). These statistics give you an indication about how densely and quickly the population increased and how this bulge in the population could not be ignored through the years. Many events in history have helped shape Canada into the country it is today, but nothing has made such an impact on how we have lived, live now, and will continue to live as much as the baby boom has.
The Baby Boom created an overwhelming demand for homes because of expanding families needing more room for their newborn children, this demand led to something called “Suburbia”. More than 1.1 million housing units were built in the 1950’s (3) to adjust to all of the new families who needed homes – this began the first decade of “urban sprawl”. There would also be a big huge demand for nurses, school teachers, doctors and such to take care of the huge amount of new kids born as a result of the Baby Boom. Canada’s economy had gone from making Bren Machine Guns just a few years earlier for the war to making baby carriages, baby clothes, new cars, and bunk beds for all the new children that had just recently entered into the world.
A few years later, during the 1950’s, when the “baby boomers” started to become teenagers, society had to adjust accordingly as well.