their single child – put more burdens on young people growing into adulthood. In the vast country, urbanization brought many rural workers to cities over the past 30 years, and the excess of cheap labor eventually dried up as the cost of living rose. Similarly in Japan, after a decade of low fertility, the country is looking for more young workers and trying to attract more women to its labor force.

India, however, with a population rivaling China's, has a different problem. The Indian government has been unable to bring down its fertility rate. The country simply doesn't have enough jobs for its young people and has insufficient social care for its older population, which is also growing.

(In the United States, the fertility rate has stayed at about 2have a second child.

The shrinking workforce and aging population are growing concerns for the Chinese government in Beijing. Two years ago, China relaxed the one-child policy by allowing families to have two children if either the husband or wife was an only child.

However, the relaxation of the 36-year-old policy did not create the baby boom projected by the government. By the end of last year, about one million couples applied to have a second child, compared to an expectation of 2 million, according to China's National Health and Family Planning Commission.

"People are choosing not to have a second child obviously because of the policy, but more so because of socio-economic changes," Cai explained. "Also, with almost 30 years of propaganda and brainwash, people start to accept the idea