Despite these enormous social and economic stakes, few institutions are talking about the fertility collapse. In the West, the governance infrastructure to respond to it simply doesn’t exist.
This contrasts starkly with how we have responded to other long-term threats. Climate change, for example, is discussed at every level of governance, from local councils to global treaties. It has dedicated agencies, major funding streams, and entire industries devoted to mitigating its effects. Climate concerns occupy a central place in media, politics, and academia. Fertility decline, by comparison, has attracted little sustained attention and few institutions dedicate any time or money at all to solving it.
While the issue is finally beginning to draw more attention, for the past several decades it has been largely overlooked. When fertility trends do surface in mainstream discourse, those raising the alarm are often treated with suspicion or derision—fertility decline is portrayed as the concern of reactionaries or racists, rather than as a legitimate policy challenge worthy of serious engagement.
