The Belgian economic miracle (French: Le miracle belge, Dutch: Het belgische wonder, literally "The Belgian Miracle") was a period of rapid economic growth in Belgium after World War II, principally between 1945 and 1948. It was characterised by parallel trends of rising employment and real wages and low inflation, leading to improvements in living standards. It formed part of the period of rapid post-war economic expansion in Western Europe in the late 1940s and 1950s but preceded many other "economic miracles" and was notably shorter in duration. The term itself has been criticised in relation to its possible contribution to the growing obsolescence of Belgian heavy industry in the 1950s and 1960s and emergence of deindustrialisation.