• Erika Igarashi Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo

• Kenneth McElwain Professor, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo

Between 1947 and 1949, Japan experienced a high fertility crude birth rate of over 32‰. This period is well known as the baby boom. There has been little empirical research on the conventional theory regarding the baby boom period in Japan due to a lack of data on the characteristics of pregnant women. Her study examines the high fertility in the postwar period using individual documents to identify the characteristics of the pregnant women. And she measures the relationship between pregnant women in the baby boom period and demobilized soldiers. She can verify the effectiveness of other factors contributing to the birth rate because the documents contain information about household income, land area, and family composition.