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b'China is poised to pass one of the great demographic inflection points\\u201d \\u2013 that\\u2019s according to the Financial Times. The inflection point the FT is referring to is that of diapers for the elderly growing into a larger market than diapers for infants. China won\\u2019t be the first. As far back as a decade ago in Japan, adult diapers started outselling infant diapers.\\nWhat does that tell us about demographics, not just in China, but about the developing world as a whole?\\n \\nWe are in the midst of a larger global trend that has not received enough attention: crashing fertility rates and shrinking populations.\\n\\nAccording to forecasts by an international team of scientists published last year in The Lancet, the world population will peak at 9.2 billion around 2065, and then drop to 8.8 billion by the end of the century. That\\u2019s a stunning difference -- if you take into account that in the 20th century world population grew 600%, from one billion to six billion. \\n \\nThe Lancet study also found what the lead scientist for the project called a \\u201cjaw dropping\\u201d result: the population of twenty-three countries -- including Japan, Italy, Spain, and Thailand -- would drop by at least half by the end of the century. The U.S. and the rest of Europe are also headed for a worrisome situation.\\n \\nThis is a trend that will have far-reaching implications for the 2020s. It will impact economics, geopolitics, culture\\u2026it could radically change the very nature of how our societies are organized.\\n \\nTo get a crash course on the issue, we invited someone who has been screaming from the hilltops about this trend for a long time. Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he researches and writes extensively on demographics and economic development generally. His many books and monographs include \\u201cPoverty in China\\u201d, \\u201cThe Tyranny of Numbers\\u201d, \\u201cThe End of North Korea\\u201d, \\u201cThe Poverty of the Poverty Rate\\u201d and \\u201cRussia\\u2019s Peacetime Demographic Crisis\\u201d. His latest book is \\u201cMen Without Work: America\\u2019s Invisible Crisis\\u201d. Nick earned his PhD and masters degree in political economy from Harvard, and a Master of Science from the London School of Economics.'