We also know there's a baby bust generation following the baby boomers.

我们还知道，婴儿潮一代之后出生率骤然下降。

As the financial crisis hit, birth rates fell in rich countries, as expected. But a persistent baby bust is a real puzzle.

正如人们所预料那样，金融危机的冲击导致发达国家的出生率下降。但持久的生育低谷才是一个真实的谜团。

This obscures the point: for every big advanced country besides America and Israel, the alternative to “replacement rate” fertility is a baby bust.

这种论调模糊了一个论点，即：对于美国与以色列之外的先进国家而言，“替代生育率”与婴儿的低出生率，二者必居其一。

Already, birth rates the world over have halved from an average of five children per women to just 2.6 today-a baby bust replacing the baby boom.

世界生育率已经降低了一半，从每个妇女平均五个孩子到如今的2.6个。婴儿潮已然退去。

This baby bust was a demographic echo of the rural famines that haunted China from 1958 to 1961, reducing the size of the cohort that would have been their parents (see right-hand chart).

出生率的骤降是中国1958年至1961年遭遇农村饥荒在统计学上的反应，饥荒减少了本来会成为他们父母的那代的规模（见右侧图表）。