Events of such great magnitude and diverse consequences as the Great Depression and World War II almost inevitably affect population trends. Overall, the 1929-45 era divides into three segments in terms of the impact on population. The early years of the depression generally slowed existing trends, most obviously in marriages, births, divorces, and migration. From the mid-1930s to the beginning of World War II, population trends largely resumed previous patterns. And then during the war, population change sped up, sometimes dramatically, particularly in marriages, births, and migration. But there were variations and exceptions to these generalizations, and dynamics already underway before 1929 often continued to shape demographic trends.
Population growth slowed dramatically in the 1930s, partly because of falling birth rates but also because of a sharp reduction in immigration as a result of the depression and of the immigration restriction legislation of the 1920s. Between 1930 and 1940, the U. S. population increased by just 7 percent (from 123 million to 132 million)—the lowest growth rate for a decade ever registered since the nation’s founding. Population growth in the 1940s was about twice that, in line with the 1910-30 rate, as it picked up during the war and then still more afterward.
The depression and then the war had a significant impact on marriage and family life. Economic insecurity produced by high unemployment and low incomes meant the postponement of many marriages early in the depression, and the marriage rate (measured by the number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15 and over) fell from 67.6 in 1930 to just 56 in 1932. It then increased, to 72.5 in 1935, to 82.7 in 1940, and to a wartime high of 93.6 in 1942. It fell to 84.5 in 1945 and then shot up to a peak of 120.7 in 1946. (It declined to the still substantial level of 90.2 by 1950.)
Because the marriage rate had been above 90 in 1920, the sharp drop early in the depression may have been in part a continuation of 1920s trends. But the increase after the mid-1930s, and especially during the war, is clear; deferred marriages from the early 1930s and then war marriages evidently account for the trend. Having generally fallen in the first three decades of the century, the median age of first marriage held steady for men (24.3) and rose only slightly for women (increasing from 21.3 to 21.5) in the 1930s, before decreasing with wartime and postwar marriages (to 22.8 for men and 20.3 for women by 1950).
Divorce rates also showed significant changes in the era. The divorce rate (divorces per 1,000 married women) had risen from 4 in 1900 to about 5 in 1910 and then to 8 in 1920 before falling slightly in the 1920s to 7.5 by 1930. In the early years of the depression, the divorce rate dropped to 6.1 in 1932 and 1933, then rose to 7.8 in 1935 and 8.8 in 1940, and then increased more rapidly still to 14.5 in 1945 before peaking at 17.8 in 1946. Clearly, the end of the war brought the dissolution of war marriages that had not worked, as well as enabling marriages that had been deferred.
Both the depression and World War II affected birthrates. Continuing their long-term decline, birthrates had fallen from 30.1 per 1,000 people in 1910 to 21.3 in 1930. They then fell further, to 18.4 in 1933; and the rate of decline from 1930 to 1933 was about three times that of the 1910-30 rate. Birthrates then generally moved up in the mid - and late 1930s, reaching 19.4 in 1940 and peaking in 1943 at 22.7 before falling back to 20.4 in 1945. The true “baby boom” began in 1946, when the birthrate reached the mid-20s, where it would remain for a decade and more; but the war years began the increases in marriages and births that would characterize postwar America.
The depression and the war also had a significant impact on migration within the United States. Overall, the era brought a significant redistribution of the population toward the SuNBELT states of the SoUTH and West Coast, toward metropolitan areas, and toward SUBURBS. Much of this essentially reinforced ongoing trends, as rural and small-town America continued their long-term decline and metropolitan areas and the West their long-term growth.
In migration, the three-part division of the era is especially obvious. From 1930 to 1935, population movement and redistribution slowed dramatically. Given the widespread ravages of the depression, there seemed little to be gained by moving from one region to another or by moving from RURAL AREAS to CITIES or vice versa, although there was more urban to rural movement than in previous decades. In the late 1930s, population movement increased and resumed pre-depression patterns, away from the rural South and Midwest toward metropolitan areas and toward the Pacific Coast.
World War II then greatly accelerated migration. More than 30 million people, or nearly one-fourth of the population, moved during the war, as some 15 million civilians moved to a different county, and about 16 million GIs served in the armed forces. Approximately 12 million people—almost one-tenth of the population—moved permanently to another state. The depopulation of rural America accelerated, as did the growth of the Sunbelt, which housed so many wartime defense industries and military bases. Suburbs attracted more people because of a lack of space in the central cities. Impressive though the numbers are, however, the basic geographic patterns were largely consistent with previous ones.
Wartime migration did more than simply redistribute the general population: It had other important consequences as well. The growing importance of the Sunbelt states on American culture and politics would be especially evident in the postwar era. (In the last third of the 20th century, every elected president came from a Sunbelt state.) The renewed migration of African Americans out of the rural South and toward cities, especially in the North and West, was of crucial importance for American race relations and the status of blacks. Crowded war-boom cities often experienced tensions, including racial tensions and sometimes conflict, as newcomers moved in and seemed to challenge and change old ways. In bringing different people into contact with one another, migration also had the effect of reinforcing trends toward cultural diffusion and homogenization.
The reduction of immigration, long a major source of American population increase, also contributed importantly to population trends and influenced various aspects of American life from 1929 to 1945 and afterward. The slowed population growth rate of the 1930s stemmed partly from the effect of the restrictive immigration laws of the 1920s in curtailing immigration and of the depression in tarnishing the economic lure that had traditionally made America so attractive to immigrants. World War II also held down immigration.
The decline in immigration led to the diminishing presence of immigrants in the United States. The number of foreign-born people in the population fell from close to 12 percent in 1930 to 9 percent in 1940 to 7 percent in 1950. Of course, the children and grandchildren of immigrants made up a substantial part of the population, and ethnic groups and ethnicity thus remained central to virtually every aspect of American life. But until the changes in immigration law in the 1960s, immigrants made up a far smaller part than previously of the population.
Some other population trends bear scrutiny. Average life expectancy continued its long-term rise, going from 47.3 years in 1900 to 50 in 1910, to 54.1 in 1920, to 59.7 in 1930, to 62.9 in 1940, and to 68.2 in 1950. Median population age rose from 26.5 to 29 in the 1930s, higher than the trend line and partly a result of declining birthrates, and then to 30.2 in 1950 before turning down in the 1950s because of the baby boom. Death rates trended down overall in the 1930s (from 11.3 per 1,000 people in 1930 to 10.8 in 1940) and then averaged 10.6 from 1941 to 1945. In part reflecting the fact that almost all of the 400,000 American military deaths in World War II were men, women comprised slightly more than half the population in 1950 after being under half down to the mid-1940s. Changes in immigration patterns also affected the gender ratio, for the heavy immigration in the century’s first three decades had been about 60 percent male, while the reduced immigration from 1930 to 1950 was almost 60 percent female.
By the end of World War II, the United States was, in significant ways, different from what it had been at the outset of the Great Depression. Important changes had come to the nation’s ECONOMY and to its GOVERNMENT and politics. But American society had also changed, not least because of population trends of the era. In all of those areas, the changes often involved continuing or reinforcing long-term trends, but the Great Depression and World War II had important effects as well.
Further reading: The Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (Stamford, Conn.: Fairfield Publishers, 1965) (It should be noted that compilations of statistical data tend to vary slightly from one another, but the general levels and patterns are quite consistent.); Theodore Caplow, Louis Hicks, and Ben J. Wattenburg, The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America, 1900-2000 (Washington, D. C.: AEI Press, 2001).
World History
