DEMOGRAPHV© Volume 15, Number 4 November 1978 WHAT WILL 1984 BE LIKE? SOCIOECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF RECENT TWISTS IN AGE STRUCTURE* Richard A. Easterlin Deportment of Economics and Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 Abstract-Since 1940, under conditions of restricted immigration and high and sustained growth in aggregate demand, shifts in the relative number of younger versus older adults have had a pervasive impact on American life. Before 1960, younger males were in increasingly short supply and their relative economic position substantially improved; after 1960, the opposite was true. Since the early sixties, as the relative condition of young adults has deteriorated, marriage has been increasingly deferred and fertility reduced. The labor force participation of young women has risen at above average rates, and that of older women has risen at below average rates. Changes in the age structure of the working age population have also contributed to a combination of rising unemployment and accelerating inflation. Cohort di- vorce rates, suicide among young males, crime rates, and political alienation have worsened. The rise in college enrollment rates has been interrupted, and SAT scores have declined. In contrast, in the period 1940-1960, changes in these various magnitudes were typically of a more favorable sort. The United States is now at the start of a new period of growing scarcity of young adults as a result of the birth rate decline that set in after 1960. This implies that the 1980s will see a turnaround or amelioration in a wide variety of these social, political, and economic conditions, some of which have been taken as symp- tomatic of a hardening social malaise. INTRODUCTION The period around 1960 marked a turn- ing point in many aspects of American experience. I need not rehearse for this audience the precipitous decline in fertility rates that has since occurred. Also well- known is the dramatic shift in the age pattern of increases in female labor force participation rates-the acceleration for younger women and slowdown for older women. But beyond these developments, there have been other major economic, social, and political changes. On the eco- nomic side, the unexpected combination of rising unemployment and accelerating * Presented as the Presidential Address to the Population Association of America at its annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, April 1978. inflation has proved a source of embar- rassment to economists (and, thereby, a delight to many noneconomist col- leagues). On the social scene, there has been an acceleration in divorce, a rise in suicide rates among the young, and an upturn in crime rates. In the political arena, there has been a growth in aliena- tion from the established system. Some of these developments have been taken as indicating a growing social malaise. Long- established cultural attitudes, too, appear to have changed. There has been growing antipathy toward childbearing and, more generally, toward population growth, and a questioning, as never before, of tradi- tional women's roles. Academic life, a central concern to many here, has been shaken by many of these developments 397 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article-pdf/15/4/397/907912/397easterlin.pdf by guest on 05 November 2021