A New Baby Boom?

According to the National Center of Health Statistics, more than 4.3 million babies were born in the United States in 2007, beating the record set in 1957 at the height of what is (was) known as the baby boom. The baby boom period began in 1946, as soldiers returned home from World War II, began to have kids, make more money, move to the suburbs and have more kids. This boom has not escaped Iowa either as births in Iowa have set new records the last couple of years.

The cause could be attributed to pastoral guidance to be fruitful and multiply,probably not, however, this second wave of a baby boom is causing a few raised eyebrows as 40 percent of these new babies are born to unwed mothers. In addition, after falling for a number of years, teenage pregnancy is up for the second straight year.

Considering that generational behavior is simply a reaction to the circumstances and situations presented to that particular generation, the question that immediately comes up is how will the family dynamic play on this generation and on the generation having these babies?

The nuclear family structure had an impact on the original baby boom generation as well as on its offspring, Generation X. Many speculate that the rebellion of the '60s and '70s was geared at the structure set up from their parents' circumstances. The Millennial generation tends to be a more optimistic, social and activist generation. Will their kids rebel against that? Will this generation relate more to the silent & X generations?

To be fair, while a record has been broken, its still too earlier to tell if this will last for a sustainable period that will indeed constitute a true baby boom. However, it is widely speculated that the Millennial generation will surpass in number the 70 million Baby Boomers that exist today and the yet to be named Generation Z will probably meet that goal as well. Not knowing what future events will assist in shaping the generation being born today, it's hard to predict their impact on the workplace, but one thing that appears to be certain is that this issue of multigenerational conflict will continue for some time.