What you did there, you picked up a single factor and came to the conclusion that fertility was the only factor to explain the world domination, where in fact for more than two decades the very populated countries you mentioned have had overpopulation rate for a very long time and that didn't make them world power. China as you mentioned result to this solution of one child per family because they were facing an abnormal increasing population growth (although I don't agree with killing any human form of life) that's the only solution they could find to limit their ever growing population. Canada as you mentioned it so well is an aging population and we open our boarders to let immigrant in... now you seems to forget that AMERICA did exactly the same, they are 4 time our population, but as I don't have the actual numbers of immigrant for the last 50 years, taking also in consideration the detached territories the American have their rate of fertility thanks to immigration, otherwise it would be the very same case than Canada.
Rate of fertility is one things, but over population also brings a lot of problem that are going to affect their socioeconomic status which can definitely play against their world control.
In order to respond to what you wrote this means that I have to do a full pledge socioeconomic analysis using your details as a comparative benchmark. Although I have better to do than giving a complete analysis on a bulletin board. I will do it anyway just so you'll be content, if I can enlighten you with some different ways of doing a research I can sure give it a shot, because sociology/demography and politics ARE my area of studies.
Here's some question I'll try to develop around:
- Presence and absence of arable land affect a nation - got to feed all those powerful people of yours. Canada is one of the world's leader in grain/cereal production. We are not going to starve anytime soon.
- Life expectancy and literacy versus the quality of labor in the economy. To be powerful you need to have a certain level of literacy and a good medical care system.
- Fertility rates versus resources - yeah well more people equals more natural resources being used... check carefully how much foreign resources the Americans are using... Canada itself provides the USA with a load of natural resources.
- GDP per capita in order to pinpoint the standards of living in each system you mentioned
- And finally the impact of industrialization/service; agriculture, employment etc.
In some of the countries you have named, there few with some of those issues and that is why I questioned if fertility is the only factor for becoming a world power. More people = more food, more food = more production and some of those countries you mentioned will have a hard time to maintain an equals share of resources.
There is indeed more to develop around, but hey I get pay thousands of dollars to do what I'm about to do for free so you'll be content.
Give me a week or two (very little time to come with a study, but I'll try my best) and I'll gather the information I need, put it in a nice text and give it to you from this thread. Since you can't view the links due to Irene's aftermath you wouldn't storm after those links if you'd saw the wealth of information they contain. :cheers: