These theoretical conclusions seem to have been confirmed by the experiences of the small cohorts that were born in the 1930s and of the large ones, that were born in the 1950s. The former group appears to have had a relatively smooth journey over the life cycle, in part because they were few in number. Schools and colleges had ample room for them, and as young adults they found employers competing strenuously to hire them. By contrast, the unusually large cohorts of the 1950s have had to contend with crowded classrooms from kindergarten on, and when they reached maturity in the late 1970s and early 1980s their large numbers depressed the market for entry-level jobs and inflated the demand for apartments and houses. Such large swings in fertility create special problems for women born during years in which cohort size is increasing rapidly. Women in these cohorts have a smaller supply of eligible husbands because most women marry men from cohorts a few years ahead of theirs. The same reasoning suggests that men who are born when cohort size is decreasing rapidly (in the 1960s, for example) will face a similar problem, sometimes referred to as a “marriage squeeze.”
Birth Order and Number of Siblings