The mid twentieth century baby boom in Sweden –changes in the educational gradient of fertility for women born 1915-1950

This paper analyzes changes in the educational gradient of fertility among Swedish women that participated in the mid twentieth century baby boom in Sweden. By using individual level data, that covers the entire Swedish population drawn from the Population and Housing Census in 1970, and the Multiple Generation Register (MGR), the study determines fertility outcomes during the baby boom across educational strata. The results indicate important differences between the first wave of the baby boom during the 1940s and the second peak in the 1960s. This is the case both with regards to education, as well as age-specific fertility patterns. The results show that that a pertinent feature of the first wave was a fertility recovery among older cohorts that had postponed births during the 1930s and that the educational gradient was still strongly negative at this time. The second wave during the 1960s was on the other hand primarily created by increased fertility among younger women below 30 years of age. For these women born in the 1930s and 1940s, that increased their educational levels compared to earlier generations, fertility differentials across educational strata reached the lowest levels recorded so far during the twentieth century.