The Baby Boom as a Global Phenomenon: Developed and Developing Countries

During the central decades of twentieth century the historical process of demographic transition was interrupted by a period of unexpected growing fertility that was called the baby boom. Up to the present the baby boom has been studied mainly in advanced societies. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of extending the analysis of baby boom to developing countries in order to find out whether we can properly speak of a baby boom among these non-developed populations. The paper provides a detailed description of baby boom from a comparative perspective (thirteen countries from four continents are included in the analysis) and it is based on a cohort approach to fertility. To this effect data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, International (IPUMS) are used. Data analysis shows that, with some exceptions, the baby boom was a global demographic phenomenon, although with important variations in terms of intensity, timing, and duration. Preliminary conclusions point to the fact that, in general, the baby boom was stronger in developing than in developed countries (with the very significant exception of USA).