Once American men returned from the WWII battlefields, they quickly displaced the women who had temporarily filled jobs otherwise reserved for men. With many women reverting to their domestic role, the dramatic increase in birth rate is perhaps not too surprising. Yet, such factors alone cannot explain the increase in the number of births from 1946-1951. Murray suggests that both women and men's perspectives changed, mostly because of America's success in the war, leading to rapid population growth. However, this position ignores the many middle- and lower-middle class women who continued working in factories and who contributed to the dramatic surge in population. Regarding this subset, the more plausible view is that couples were more likely to conceive based on the fact that they considered themselves part of a dual-income household – if necessary, the woman of the home could work.