By Selwyn Duke

China has long entertained dreams of being the world’s dominant power, but it has at least one notable impediment: Its population is aging at a rapid rate.

Still the world’s most populous country, the “Middle Kingdom” had a robust fertility rate (FR) of 3.50 children per woman in 1976. But the “one-child policy” instituted in 1979, along with further movement into modernity, changed this. Now China’s FR stands at a low 1.66 — well below replacement level (2.10).

How is this a problem in a nation with 1.357 billion people?

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