That is the reduction in births in China last year, more evidence of a demographic tsunami that will continue to hold back economic growth – and largely the result of the “one child” policy enacted back in1980. As reported this week by the Wall Street Journal, at the time governments around the world feared overpopulation would hold back their economies. A Moscow-trained missile scientist led the push for China’s policy, based on tables of calculations that applied mathematical models used to calculate rocket trajectories to population growth. Now more than four decades later, China is aging much earlier in its development than other major economies did. The shift to fewer births and more elderly citizens threatens to hold back economic growth. In a generation that grew up without siblings, young women are increasingly reluctant to have children—and there are fewer of them every year. And Beijing is at a loss on how to change the mindset brought about by the policy.