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Japan is not quite the outlier it is often assumed to be. True, its fertility rate – at 1.41 births per woman – is well below the 2.1 needed to replenish a population. However, according to George Magnus, author of The Age of Aging, fully 62 countries, home to nearly half the world’s population, including Britain, have fertility rates below replacement level. Japan is by no means the world’s least fecund country. Below it come the likes of the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Belarus, Bosnia, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Germany, Italy, Greece and Hungary all have almost exactly the same fertility rate as Japan. China, at about 1.5, is in danger of growing old before it becomes rich. Singapore produces the lowest number of babies in the world – at just 0.79 per woman. “The key feature of today’s low fertility rates,” says Magnus, “is that they are pretty much universal.” full article: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/07d4c8a8-7e45-11e3-b409-00144feabdc0.html#slide0 huat! world number 1 again.