Demographics

For three decades China's one-child policy helped power this nation's economic rise. With fewer mouths to feed, families saved. Poverty fell. Living standards improved. But a social experiment that worked well in some respects is now threatening the country's hard-won gains. China's working-age population -- the engine behind its prolific growth -- will start shrinking within a few years. Meanwhile, the ranks of elderly are projected to soar.

Japan, which designates every May 5 as Children's Day, had fewer children to celebrate the holiday for the 28th straight year, underscoring a demographic shift that could eventually wreak havoc on the world's second-largest economy. A government report released this week says the number of children younger than 15 as of April 1 had fallen to about 17 million. Japan's proportion of children -- which has been declining for 35 years -- now stands at just 13% of the country's 128 million people.

Latino and Asian growth in the Inland Empire and other outlying areas is slowing while such traditional gateways as Los Angeles are experiencing a "mini-rebound" in their minority population, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data. Los Angeles County, for instance, saw a net gain of nearly 70,000 Latinos last year, a 1.5% increase in that population after two years of near-flat growth. In contrast, the Latino growth rate in Riverside County dropped by nearly half to 3.

A brick wall separated Julio Perez's childhood home from Disneyland, where his father worked in the laundry room. On that side was the Anaheim that America knew, the quintessential Orange County suburb where expanses of orange groves gave way to rows of 1950s tract homes and a signature theme park. On his side was the neighborhood where Perez, 30, spent his 1980s childhood: a dense, vibrant, heavily Latino island where parks filled with soccer players and families grilled carne asada.

If you're looking for Michael March, he's probably in the basement, slogging on the treadmill. Or he may be doing push-ups in front of the TV. At 38, he wants to be prepared when he begins Army basic training later this week. "I know I'm going to get picked on as the old guy in boot camp," he said. "I don't want to be last." Traditionally the Army has attracted the young, many of them fresh out of high school. They join for the promise of adventure, the chance to be part of something bigger, and a free college education.

More than three decades of rapid growth in the country's foreign-born population came to a halt last year, census data show, as surging unemployment made the U.S. economy less attractive to outsiders. In California, which has a long history of attracting immigrants, the number of foreign-born residents actually declined, shrinking 1.6%. "This is clearly a consequence of the economy, with the biggest impact on Mexican and low-skilled immigrants," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the census figures, which are to be officially released today.

More than 1 million immigrants became U.S. citizens last year, the largest surge in history, hastening the ethnic transformation of California's political landscape with more Latinos and Asians now eligible to vote. Leading the wave, California's 300,000 new citizens accounted for nearly one-third of the nation's total and represented a near-doubling over 2006, according to a recent report by the U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics.

From a breezy country club veranda overlooking the rooftops in the seaside resort village of Avalon, Robert Gonzalez waited anxiously Saturday for his name to be called by Mexican officials renewing his passport. Gonzalez, a 21-year-old construction worker and restaurant waiter who grew up on Santa Catalina Island, estimated he was saving hundreds of dollars by using the service provided by Mexican Consul General Juan Marcos Gutierrez-Gonzalez and 26 staffers who set up shop here for a day.

Presidential election exit polls showed that the economy was uppermost on the minds of most Americans. But when Baghdad-based Army Maj. Ian Howard cast his ballot, his top concern was whether this would be his last deployment to Iraq. So Howard, a lifelong Republican, threw his support to Barack Obama, who has advocated a swift withdrawal of U.S. forces. "I don't want to come back here for another tour," Howard said Wednesday.

Chinese Americans are a complex and highly diverse ethnic group, filling both ends of the sociological spectrum as rich and poor, college graduates and high school dropouts, high-tech managers and sweatshop workers, according to a new national study. The University of Maryland study found that California was home to 36.9% of the nation's 3.5 million Chinese Americans, the largest concentration.