Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

by Derek Thompson

The postwar economic boom A serious commercial interest in teenagers didn’t begin in earnest until after World War II. To entice marketers, teenagers needed money, and that money would come from two principal sources: the labor force and parents. The 1950s saw one of the great periods of economic expansion in American history. With full employment came rising wages for unionized adults and older teenage workers. Meanwhile, parents gradually had fewer children and spent more per child, as befits any scarce and valuable investment. Birthrates declined across the advanced world in the second half of the twentieth century due to both the rise of female education and the legalization of the pill. Since the 1970s, the richest 20 percent of U.S. households have more than doubled their spending on childhood “enrichment,” such as summer camps, sports, and tutors. As the modern marriage has come to revolve around children, young people emerged as the chief financial officers of family spending.