China's rollout of measures to boost its flagging birth rate remains patchy and inconsistent, a team of researchers has found. About two-thirds of the world’s population now lives in regions where the total fertility rate (TFR) is below the 2.1 births per woman needed to sustain a population naturally. China’ s rate is among the world’s lowest—hovering near 1.0—and last year, deaths outnumbered births for the third consecutive year, despite a raft of policies introduced to encourage larger