Demographic indicators show that Americans in the postwarperiod were more eager than ever

Demographic indicators show that Americans in the postwar

period were more eager than ever to establish families. They quickly

brought clown the age at marriage for both men and women and brought

the birth rate to a twentieth century height after more than a hundred 【B1】_______

years of a steady decline, producing the "baby boom." These young 【B2】_______

adults established a trend of early marriage and relatively large families

that went for more than two decades and caused a major but 【B3】_______

temporary reversal of long-term demographic patterns. From the

1940s through the early 1960s, Americans married at a high rate and 【B4】_______

at a younger age than their Europe counterparts. 【B5】_______

Less noted but equally more significant, the men and women who 【B6】_______

formed families between 1940 and 1960 nevertheless reduced the 【B7】_______

divorce rate after a postwar peak; their marriages remained intact to

a greater extent than did that of couples who married in earlier as 【B8】_______

well as later decades. Since the United States maintained its dubious 【B9】_______

distinction of having the highest divorce rate in the world, the

temporary decline in divorce did not occur in the same extent in 【B10】_______

Europe. Contrary to fears of the experts, the role of breadwinner

and homemaker was not abandoned.

【B1】