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Post–World War II economic expansion

Long period of worldwide economic growth following World War II / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The post–World War II economic expansion, also known as the postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism,[1][2] was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning with the aftermath of World War II and ending with the 1973–1975 recession.[1] The United States, the Soviet Union and Western European and East Asian countries in particular experienced unusually high and sustained growth, together with full employment.

Suburbia_by_David_Shankbone.jpg
In the United States and several other nations, the post-World War II boom led to major suburban development and urban sprawl, aided by increasing automobile ownership and cheap oil, as shown in this suburban development in Colorado Springs, Colorado in March 2008.
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Per capita GDP of various industrialized countries between 1920 and 1976

Contrary to early predictions, this high growth also included many countries that had been devastated by the war, such as Japan (Japanese economic miracle), West Germany and Austria (Wirtschaftswunder), South Korea (Miracle on the Han River), Belgium (Belgian economic miracle), France (Trente Glorieuses), Italy (Italian economic miracle) and Greece (Greek economic miracle). Even countries that were relatively unaffected by the war such as Sweden (Record years) experienced considerable economic growth.

The boom established the conditions for a larger series of global changes at the height of the Cold War, including postmodernism, decolonisation, a marked increase in consumerism, the welfare state, the space race, the Non-Aligned Movement, import substitution, counterculture of the 1960s, the beginning of second-wave feminism, and a nuclear arms race.