Governments around the world are trying new policies to boost birth rates. China this week said it will offer new parents a subsidy of $500 per child, for example. But what happens to humanity if the fertility crisis cannot be reversed?

Global fertility is now at the lowest rate in "recorded history," creating a potential "depopulation bomb," said Greg Ip at The Wall Street Journal . That worries economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso, whose new book, "After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People," is an "impassioned case" against ignoring that trend. "Humanity could hasten its own extinction" if birth rates stay below replacement level, they said.

'Dramatically overstated'

People are "freaking out" about falling birth rates, said NPR . A "shrinking and agin

See Full Page