Production, subdivided into carpentries, some of which produce coffins sold at affordable prices, tailor shops, bakeries pastries, lotteries

One of the most dramatic manifestations of these improvements will be moving from population pyramids to what we might term population coffins.

For weeks the Bush administration kept the report on abuses in Iraqi prisons from the American people by pressuring CBS not to air the photographs in its possession. Similarly, it was only through the use of the Freedom of Information Act that the dramatic photographs of the coffins of US soldiers coming home were finally made public.

Rapid demographic decline has been brought to a halt since the turn of the century (a time when coffins outnumbered cribs by seven to four), as generous government subsidies for a third child have boosted the fertility rate from its 1999 low of 1.16 children per woman to 1.58 in 2010. That is still far below the replacement rate of 2.1, but higher fertility, together with successful measures to reduce male mortality, has slowed the pace of population shrinkage.