[w-j-w]

This misses a bigger issue with a baby bust: population composition. When birth rates decline sharply all at once, as is happening here, populations skew older and older. More elderly people being supported by fewer young people is also not a recipe for sustainability, in fact it is quite the opposite. The people who will be burdened with caring for the elderly are also the people who will need to have children in order to stabilize the population. This isn't an easy leveling-off of a population, its the beginning of a collapse.

[poikroequ]

There's plenty of young people to care for the elderly. There's this strange assumption that it takes one young person to care for one elderly person, I've seen it in news articles, and I've seen people say it, either implicitly or explicitly.

Here's the shocker: one young person can care for more than one elderly person. Not every elderly person needs a young person exclusively devoted to them.

Also not all elderly people need caretakers. Not all elderly people are helpless without young people. My dad is well into his 70s now, and he may be retired, but is still helping family and friends, fixes up their homes, helps care for his grandchildren, and holds his own.

Society won't fall apart. You just need to adjust your expectations and things will work out in the end.