Considers the global consequences of continued population growth and the various options for dealing with its impact on the environment and natural resources.

The United Nations has stated that the 1990s are the last possible decade for regulating fertility rates so that populations do not grow beyond the earth's capacity to sustain human life. Demographic experts are confounded by the persistence of high fertility in light of a number of circumstances that were expected to cause a decline, such as international dissemination of technical assistance and capital; improved health care conditions to lower...

"When Communist Party leaders adopted the one-child policy in 1980, they hoped curbing birth-rates would help lift China's poorest and increase the country's global stature. But at what cost? Now, as China closes the book on the policy after more than three decades, it faces a population grown too old and too male, with a vastly diminished supply of young workers. Mei Fong has spent years documenting the policy's repercussions on every sector of Chinese...