During the Second World War, women proved that they could do
"men's" work, and do it well. With men away to serve in the
military and demands for war material increasing, manufacturing
jobs opened up to women and upped their earning power. Yet
women's employment was only encouraged as long as the war was
on. Once the war was over, federal and civilian policies
replaced women workers with men. After the war, the birth rate
increased dramatically. Although many people assume that the
baby boom happened because peace and prosperity returned,
historian Elaine Tyler May points out in Homeward Bound:
American Families in the Cold War Era that the rise in the
number of births went far beyond what was expected from a return
to peace. Previous periods of post-war prosperity, notably the
period after World War I, had not led to such dramatic increases
in marriage and childbearing. In the late 1940s and early 1950s,
Americans in their childbearing years had weathered the
Depression and a devastating war, and they were l