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Family Choices

Africa has the world's highest birth rate. The continent also suffers high rates of infertility. How are African governments, charities, and health workers giving couples more control over their reproduction?

Japanese dads struggle to reform fatherhood

Japan in Focus

Statistically speaking, for every baby born in Japan, two people pass away. The country’s rapidly shrinking population is, according to Japanese officials, a “national emergency” threatening its future prosperity and entire way of life. They’re struggling to reverse this trend but some believe fixing this problem calls for a revolution in Japanese fatherhood. The World’s Patrick Winn reports with Aya Asakura in Tokyo.

Interactive Feature: Global Fertility Map

Health & Medicine

Infographic: The Human Toll of Infertility in Africa

Development & Education

Part II: Not Just a Women’s Issue

Health & Medicine

Behind the Video, ‘Beauty’s Children’

Health & Medicine
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The World

Family Planning Series Video: Beauty’s Children

Health & Medicine

Beauty Sqalane lives outside Cape Town, South Africa. When she learned she could not get pregnant, she was devastated. Then she found a way to bring children into her life.

Part I: Rethinking the Model Family

Health & Medicine

In Ethiopia, having eight children is not uncommon. To reduce birth rates, the government has enlisted the help of health workers and religious leaders. Their goal: change attitudes about what constitutes an “ideal” family.

Part III: Infertile in a Land of Kids

Health & Medicine

In Africa’s child-centered cultures, women who cannot give birth often endure stigma, scorn, and social isolation. A rare clinic in South Africa offers high-tech fertility treatment to those of low-income.

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