baby boomn.
/ˈbeɪbɪ buːm/, U.S. /ˈbeɪbi ˌbum/ Originally U.S. colloquial.
1. A temporary notable increase in the birth rate of a population.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > source or principle of life > birth > confinement > [noun] > childbirth or delivery > population explosion
baby boom1879
bulge1930
population explosion1946
baby boomlet1963
echo boom1975
1879 Dubuque (Iowa) Daily Times 20 Nov. The baby boom is over, it is feared, for the present season. Not a birth registered at the City Recorder's office for four days.
1923 Wisconsin State Jrnl. 11 Dec. 3/1 A baby boom which was starting in the early months of 1923.
1996 Sydney Morning Herald (Nexis) 1 Feb. 16 There's a baby boom at the zoo with new additions including three Sumatran tiger cubs and a koala.
2021 Times (Nexis) 11 Mar. 39 Back at the start of the pandemic, there was a lot of speculation that it might lead to a baby boom. After all, what else were people supposed to do, shut away in their homes for weeks on end?
2. spec. With the. The marked and sustained increase in the birth rate occurring between the mid 1940s and the mid 1960s, following the Second World War (1939–45). Also: the people born during this period. Cf. bulge n. 3f.
ΚΠ
1948 Population Index 14 189 The expected decline in births as a result of World War II failed to materialize. Instead, there was the ‘baby boom’ that carried the number of births in 1947 to an estimated total of 3.7 million.
1963 Wisconsin State Jrnl. 15 Dec. 10/1 The first of the baby boom will leave high school in 1965.
1975 Nature 22 May 287/1 The postwar ‘baby boom’ has now passed through higher education.
2003 Wall St. Jrnl. 9 July a15/4 Medicare is a giant single payer, soon to have a finger on nearly half of all medical spending as the baby boom retires.
2021 G. Glaser Amer. Baby x. 134 It's impossible to exaggerate the scope of the changes wrought, and driven by, the baby boom, as wave after wave of children vastly reshaped the country's culture, economy, and demographics.
Compounds
baby boom generation n. the generation of people born between the mid 1940s and the mid 1960s, following the Second World War (1939–45). Cf. baby boomer n.The oldest of the baby boom generation came of age in the 1960s and are associated with the counterculture of that period, the civil and women's rights movements, and the sexual revolution. However, the cohort has often been characterized by subsequent generations as financially privileged and advantaged, having grown up in an era of relative economic affluence (in the West), and having been the beneficiaries of widespread government subsidies and welfare programmes.
ΚΠ
1957 Duplin Times (Kenansville, N. Carolina) 28 Mar. Educators have been painting a gloomy picture of the disaster which was about to befall them when the ‘baby boom’ generation swamped school plants.
1991 D. Coupland Generation X i. iv. 21 Envy of material wealth and long-range material security accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of fortunate births.
2013 Sunday Times (Nexis) 7 July 25 The baby-boom generation is much maligned, not least for pricing its children and grandchildren out of the housing market.
Derivatives
ˈbaby ˌboomlet n. a small baby boom; spec. the marked increase in the birth rate between the late 1970s and early 1990s, when people born during the post-Second World War baby boom became parents (= echo boom n.).
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > source or principle of life > birth > confinement > [noun] > childbirth or delivery > population explosion
baby boom1879
bulge1930
population explosion1946
baby boomlet1963
echo boom1975
1963 J. Bensman & B. Rosenberg Mass, Class, & Bureaucracy xiii. 405 During the war years and the postwar years, a baby boomlet was apparent.
1978 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 8 Feb. 11/1 Some products of the post-war baby boom may be contributing to a baby boomlet.
2009 Sydney Morning Herald (Nexis) 20 Feb. 10 Something will have to give. Parents will hope it is not the needs of the children of the baby boomlet.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2021).
<
n.1879