The right answer is the size of the U.S. population. After the Second World War ended, 15 million military veterans eagerly returned to schools, jobs, and families. Population growth, which had dropped off sharply in the 1930s, now soared. The “baby boom generation,” those Americans born during this postwar period (roughly 1946–1964) composed a disproportionately large generation of Americans that would become a dominant force shaping the nation’s social and cultural life throughout the second half of the twentieth century and after.
