You're listening to the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me

Helena Merriman each week one question four expert witnesses and an answer. It was an extraordinary scene.

Hundreds of babies, just a few weeks old, bundled in the arms of their parents in an old Soviet

museum in eastern Russia. The family stood there waiting to find out how they done in a competition that began exactly nine months ago.

The challenge?

To give birth on June the 12th, Russia's National Conception Day. Get the timing right, and you could win a fridge, TV set, washing machine or car.

It was part of a social experiment in Russia, a country whose birth rate has been

falling for the past two decades. President Putin has spent billions of dollars

trying to boost it through competitions and cash handouts.

But at the beginning of this year,

Russia announced that its birth rate had dropped again.

It's now the lowest in 10 years. It's not just Russia whose population is shrinking.

Across the developed world countries are aging. Some have called it a demographic crisis. Without enough young people to fund

pensions and elderly care, the argument goes, economies could plunge. Of course, some would argue that falling birth rates are a very good thing.

There are too many of us already.

But given that some governments are desperate to boost their birth rates,

we want to know whether it can be done. So our question this week, how do you

make people have babies? Part 1, the Singapore Slump.

I've always been interested in

in marriage timing and fertility timing.

So this work is a professional and personal interest to you. And personal, very much so, very much so, yes.

Demographic issues are always close to my heart.

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