Many people in the postwar era looked forward to having children because they were confident that the future would be one of comfort and prosperity. In many ways, they were right: Corporations grew larger and more profitable, labor unions promised generous wages and benefits to their members, and consumer goods were more plentiful and affordable than ever before. As a result, many Americans felt certain that they could give their families all the material things that they themselves had done without.
The baby boom and the suburban boom went hand in hand. The G. Bill subsidized low-cost mortgages for returning soldiers, which meant that it was often cheaper to buy one of these suburban houses than it was to rent an apartment in the city. The suburban baby boom had a particularly confining effect on women. First, it placed the baby boomers squarely at the center of the suburban universe. Second, it generated a great deal of dissatisfaction among women who yearned for a more fulfilling life.
Consumer goods played an important role in middle-class life during the postwar era. Adults participated eagerly in the consumer economy, using new-fangled credit cards and charge accounts to buy things like televisions, hi-fi systems and new cars. But manufacturers and marketers had their eyes on another group of shoppers as well: the millions of relatively affluent boomer children, many of whom could be persuaded to participate in all kinds of consumer crazes.
They collected hula hoops, Frisbees and Barbie dolls. As they grew older, some baby boomers began to resist this consumerist suburban ethos. The Sputnik could be seen whizzing across the night sky. This achievement induced a radical change in the education system in the United States.
Many felt that the education system had fallen behind, and a new emphasis was put on science and mathematics. The government began investing huge amounts of resources into research and developing new technologies. This investment opened new opportunities for baby boomers to innovate and change the world of technology.
Over a decade later, they witnessed the moon landing. During their lives, many baby boomers saw almost the entirety of the Cold War. They were born during a period of high tension between the United States and Russia. Many would also later witness the destruction of the Berlin Wall in November Baby boomers were born into a world of black and white television and now live in the age of Wi-Fi, smartphones, and machine learning.
Many of the earliest computer-age innovators are baby boomers, such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Share the stories of the baby boomers in your family and ask them about their experiences during these pivotal times in history.
As suburban families began to use new forms of credit to purchase consumer goods such as cars, appliances, and television sets, businesses also targeted those children, the growing boomers, with marketing efforts.
As the boomers approached adolescence, many became dissatisfied with this ethos and the consumer culture associated with it, which fueled the youth counterculture movement of the s. That huge cohort of children grew up to pay the decades of Social Security taxes that funded the retirements of their parents and grandparents. Now, millions each year are retiring themselves. By , it is projected that older adults will outnumber those under age 18 for the first time in U.
And even though they are aging the very youngest boomers are in their late 50s as of they continue to hold corporate and economic power; in the U.
The first of the baby boom generation became eligible to retire in In many ways, the way they spend their post-work years will be different from that of their parents; members of what's often called the Greatest Generation.
Many people in previous generations worked as long as they could and few were fortunate enough to have a retirement that would be considered golden by today's standards. America's post-World War II prosperity made things better for the greatest generation, who benefited from a workforce in which there were six employees for every retiree.
Plenty of people in that generation were able to retire at the official age of One change from then and now is that a large percentage of the 76 million American baby boomers are expected to live 10 to 25 years longer than their parents did.
Those retiring in their 60s can expect to live about 25 years more, at least. So their retirement period will be longer. With more health and energy—and their children now adults—boomers who can afford it expect to spend at least early retirement fulfilling travel dreams and other bucket-list items.
Those who reach retirement age now are often healthy enough to run marathons, build houses, and even start businesses. Instead of relocating to retirement communities, many are migrating to small towns that can offer employment and education opportunities. Other boomers are choosing to move into urban areas to take advantage of amenities, such as public transportation and cultural attractions.
Some with thinner resources are retiring outside the U. Forty-five percent have no retirement savings, according to the Boomer Expectations of Retirement report of the Insured Retirement Institute. The greatest generation had relatively few investment options: mostly ordinary bonds and certificates of deposit. But those are relatively secure forms of income. That's not true for the boomers. What's more, with a longer lifespan comes more opportunity, and need, to take at least some investment risks to ensure keeping up with inflation.
Today's boomers are faced with an ever-expanding universe of income securities. The investment industry has provided a lot of rope to invest, and a lot of new and exciting ways to lose it all. If they felt like taking a risk, the boomers' parents might have bought some dividend -paying stocks. At the time, most of the dividend-paying industries, such as finance and utilities, were highly regulated. Decades of deregulation have caused these industries to become less predictable and riskier.
Hence, the certainty of previously assumed dividends or return on investments is now uncertain. This was good for savers and terrible for homebuyers. This long decline in interest rates provided a great return to bond investors. The boomers are facing the very opposite situation. Instead of an ever-declining interest rate, they are facing the likelihood of steadily increasing interest rates during their retirement.
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