Labor market success of young adults from two generations (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, Feb. 1998

Labor market success of young adults from two generations

Kurt Schrammel

The post-World War II "baby boom," characterized by high fertility rates from 1946 to 1964, put a stamp on the social, political, and economic landscape of the Nation that is likely to last well into the next century. Seventy-six million babies were born over the 19-year period, or about 4 million per year. Because the baby-boom generation is so large relative to the generations directly before and after it, as its members progress through the various life stages, demographers often compare it to watching a python eating a piglet—the bulge moves slowly through the system. Fertility rates declined in the subsequent period, however, and the average number of births dropped to about 3.4 million per year from 1965 to 1976. The resulting smaller generation is sometimes called the "baby bust."¹

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the young adult labor force—defined here as workers aged 25 to 34—grew rapidly as successive waves of baby-boomers reached the age of 25. Employment among young adults grew nearly as rapidly during the period, but unemployment rates also were fairly high, prompting some analysts to argue that the size of the baby-boom cohort was responsible for some of its problems in the labor market. It also was noted at the time that the transition of the young adult work force from boomers to busters would occur during the 1990s. Some observers of labor market trends speculated that the resulting smaller cohort would lead to an improvement in the labor market conditions of young adults. The following prediction, quoted from a popular business magazine in 1979, is typical: "Over the next 25 years [the baby-bust generation] will enjoy better entry-level jobs, higher relative income, and faster promotions because of sparser numbers."²

This excerpt is from an article published in the February 1998 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

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Footnotes
¹ Birth and fertility statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, homepage (http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/mission.htm), November 1997. For background on the baby boom and how it relates to the economy, see Louise B. Russell, The Baby Boom Generation and the Economy (Washington, Brookings, 1982.)

² "Populations Changes that Help for a While," Business Week, Sept. 3, 1979, pp. 180-87.

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