Boomer Bonus Days – April 1, 2025

History of Boomer Bonus Days

Baby boomers got their name from the spike of births that happened soon after World War II was finished. Let’s just say the entire world was really happy that the war was over. When news spread that the war was over, celebrations erupted across the U.S. On September 2, 1945, the formal surrender documents were signed aboard the USS Missouri and so designated the day as the official Victory over Japan Day. Most Boomers are children of either the Greatest Generation or the Silent Generation and are often parents of late Gen Xers and Millennials. Some late Boomers can give birth to Generation Z as well.

Due to the period Baby Boomers were born, they experienced different reforms culturally and politically. In China, during the time of the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) encouraged people to have lots of children as it believed a growing labor force was needed for significant national development along socialist lines.

China’s baby-boom cohort was the largest in the world, with lots of children being born after World War II. According to journalist and photographer Howard French, many Chinese neighborhoods were disproportionately filled with the elderly by the mid-2010s. The Chinese referred to them as referred as a “lost generation”. They grew up during the Cultural Revolution when higher education was discouraged and most people were sent to the countryside for political reasons. They were also subject to China’s one-child policy and so there is a disparity in the size of them and the next generation. Most Boomers are retired now and so Generation X and Millenials are replacing them in the workforce. This makes Boomer Bonus Day significant as it is used to appreciate them.