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American Society on the CHange during the Post- World War Years

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American Society on the Change during the Post-World War Years
After World War II, Americans experienced a time of rapid social change. American soldiers were discharged and returned home from the battlefields, hoping to find work and to get on with their lives. Marriage rate increased dramatically after the war. North American population experienced what is known as the “Baby boom” – an 18-year period of rapid population growth from 1946 to 1964. During this period, many children were born than in the same period before or after. During the post war years, the United States embarked on one of its greatest periods of economic expansion. Many Americans had enjoyed economic prosperity. However, the United States has changed since 1950. …show more content…

These includes changes in social levels over time, death rates, economic conditions and laws –the no-fault divorce laws, the reduction in fertility and the legalization of abortion increased the divorce rates in the 1980s. However, scholars believe that the single most important social change which made divorce possible was the increase in the employment of women and the economic independence that employment provided. For nearly all decades, the lifetime probability of divorce for women of all ages has been increasing. For women born in 1920, the likelihood of divorce by age 55 was 27 percent. This same level of divorce was reached at a much younger age (age 30) for women born in 1950. At least 40 percent of young adult women are likely to divorce. 16 percent are likely to divorce twice if current divorce rates continue. In Document 1, in the 1990s and 2000s, divorce rates appear to decline slightly. In the meantime, suburban population was growing and shifting during the post war years. Baby boomers brought much prosperity as they grew up and entered the work force. With so many people working and making a better living, growing families needed more room. Millions of Americans were leaving the cities for the suburbs. The growth of the suburbs after 1945 was due mainly to the large number of new homes financed by the G1 Bill which gave them low interest rate mortgages to purchase new homes. Tax deductions also made the move from urban areas to the suburbs

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