Anti-Hypothesis!

If you find Arvind's hypothesis on the probability of the current financial crisis becoming a precursor for another baby boom counter-intuitive, come back. We shall talk.

The premise of his argument is that a baby boom has historically followed a state of national distress - true but the line of reasoning goes completely haywire after that. He goes on to comment about how they ( Americans ) have always managed to overcome the realities through their enhanced productivity giving such examples as the WW-2, the war on Vietnam and the 9/11 strikes. But on looking up data ( here, here and here ), that story doesn't seem to hold ground. For instance, the real baby boom in the United States happened after World War -2 precisely between 1946 and 1964 when birth rates went up dramatically ( nearly 16 % - 2.85 million births in '45 to 3.41 million births in '46) and not during World War-2 where, to requote him, people managed to overcome the realities through their enhanced productivity and abilities to handle stress. Moreover, this baby boom happened not only in the United States but in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Sweden, Germany and heck, even in India after '47. Has the world seen that kind of a baby boom after that? Not really. Not after Vietnam ( the war on Vietnam happened in '75 and the birth rate has been going up barely 1% each year after that ) and also not after 9/11 ( the number of births in 2002 actually went down from 2001).

What, then causes a baby boom? Rather than, to quote Arvind again, crises leading to increased sexual activity in a nation ( which I am assuming was intended to be funny than of any real argumentative value ) it is an increased sense of social well being and security, immigration, a realignment of responsibilities among men and women leading to the man leading the conventional role of the bread-winner and woman of the home-maker. All these factors usually happen as a package only after a major war when young males return from their war-time duties, couples reunite, women go back to their usual responsibilities of bearing offsprings and the social and economic restraints that stopped them from starting families disappear and there is a heightened desire among human beings to bond and procreate.

So, now would the current financial crisis be a precursor to a baby boom? Hard as it may have hit the United States' ( and now Europe's ) financial stability, it is noteworthy that it has not caused an economic upheaval like in the Great Recession. It is because the finance community - investment bankers, analysts, financial advisers - form a very small group ( less than 7% of the employed American population if I remember an Economist article correctly ) so that a few ( relatively speaking ) lost jobs and some foreclosures on some bad mortgages do not convert to an economic crisis. Moreover the hardest hit by the financial crisis seems to be people in their 40's where losing a job or a stake in a company could be analogous to death in a battlefield ( very low probability of gaining it all back ), and by the time they ( the country to be precise ) recover from this crisis ( which could be atleast 3 years from now, if not more ) they would be as good as out of the fertile pool.

Point being, without an economic crisis ( rather than a financial crunch ), without a war-like situation, without great instability all leading to a heightened sense of social and economic security ( which an aftermath of this financial crisis do not guarantee ( taxes, remember? ) ) a baby boom seems highly unlikely.

P.S: Writing a reply-post on this wouldn't be worth your time. No, seriously!