Every day, at least 1,500 people line up to see fertility doctors at Peking University Third Hospital, where the Chinese mainland's first test-tube baby was born in 1988.

The success rate for IVF treatments at Peking University Third Hospital is 50 percent for women ages 25-35. The rate drops to 30 percent for those 36-40 years old and to 10 percent for those beyond 40.

In 2010, an estimated 48.5 million couples worldwide were unable to have a child after five years together, according to a United Nations study.

China has the world's largest population of seniors, with 194 million people at least 60 years old, the China National Committee on Aging reported in 2012. This age group is expected to grow to 243 million by 2020, and by 2050 one-third of the country's population will be older than 60.

- Tiffany Tan

(China Daily 04/27/2014 page3)