The fridge didn’t cause the baby boom, scholars say
The Baby Boom, that rapid increase in birth rates between the late 1940s and the early 1960s, is still a puzzle to social scientists. They have a lot of ideas about why it might have happened — exuberance after the war, for instance — but nothing that can be proven statistically.
In recent years, an economic explanation for the boom has gained popularity. Household techology advanced so rapidly between 1940 and 1960, this line of thought goes, that the “cost” of having a child went down, if you measure that cost by the amount of work needed to feed and care for that child.
In a new working paper, University of Michigan economist Martha J. Bailey and Vanderbilt University economist William J. Collins set out to demolish this explanation. They look at county-by-county data, comparing fertility rates with the progress of electrification, and find no correlation. They also look at a group that earlier researchers may have overlooked:
Finally, we document that the Old Order Amish, a group that limited its use of modern appliances on religious grounds, had a baby boom that began at nearly the same time, lasted just as long, and was approximately as large as the baby boom in the rest of the U.S. population.
Sounds like it’s pretty much game-over for the fridge-made-’em-do-it theory.
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
there are almost always baby booms after major wars. but anyway, after world war II the medical situation for women had changed so much that live healthy births were higher. ie…….even though women have always have more pregnancies after a mojor war, this time they actually produced. also of course following in this same line, more women actualy lived through their first birth and went on to have more, as many as they (or their church) wanted too. i can’t imaine what refrigerators have to do with this? keeps the beer cold so he likes his lady better? maybe the washer did it cause she smeels better.
The “boom” was only a boom in relation to reduced birth rates during World War II and the Depression. Prior to that, birth rates were just as high or higher.
This isn’t just academic. As much as people talk about what is necessary to sustain prosperity in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, most of them ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room, which is that of an increasing population set against a declining base of certain critical resources. It’s a “bubble” that will have consequences much worse than the collapse of the “housing bubble” when it eventually collapses through famine, disease, war, or most likely some combination of these things. And just like the financial bubble, the U.S. won’t be immune from it.
Unlike McCain and Palin, Barack Obama (and George Bush) are at least setting a socially responsible example by limiting their family to 2 children.