I don't think societies can afford to ignore for another decade the population collapse that is simultaneously happening worldwide.

But we have too many people.

The problem is not the number of people, but the proportion of working people to retirees. Imagine a society with 80% retired people and only 10% of people working. Those people will have to pay taxes over 80%, and will not be able to afford children, making the problem worse in another generation.

No add to this that old people will have more voting power... they will literally screw the youth way worse than boomers did. Add to that elder people with no children, that will not care at all about screwing other people kids to live barely a few more years more.

But less people means fewer people to pay for or to take care of

It also means fewer people paying taxes, and since elder people cost more to healthcare and insurance, we will have huge net losses.

Those who save money will be ok

Without younger people working, or with economic stagnation, more money will be printed to cover costs of the state, making your savings worthless by the years.

The value of money is mostly set by labor. Less labor means less valuable money.

Migration will fix it

Even poor countries are suffering the population collapse, and not all migrants are economically valuable. For example, most asian migrants in Germany have no jobs, since the culture is different and the jobs they know do not fix the German culture. It gets worse when working migrants bring their elderly family, as it is happening in USA, so all their contribution becomes net zero.

Automation will help us

Usually innovation is made by younger people. Fewer younger people mean way less innovation. Japan also has a lot of automation, probably the most in the world, and yet they still are suffering the consequences of population collapse.

If we pay maternity leave, it will fix the problem

Countries that pay maternity leave are not having more kids than Americans or countries that don't pay maternity leave.

Meanwhile, most people still report they want children... they just don't have them. We literally have no idea what is happening.

I don't have kids, not my problem

People without kids will probably suffer the most in this future. No family to visit or care for them, they will have to rely on savings on inflated money and the generosity of the few younger people that do care about them.

I suspect that childless people (voluntary or not) will be at some point openly shamed and resented for the demographic collapse, and there will be no family there to defend them.

> What are the end consequences of this?

It is hard to know, but I suspect younger people will somehow create independent autonomous societies to avoid taxation, making the problem worse for the elderly, most of which will never retire anyway. We will see how buildings and streets collapse and rot in our lifetime, as a lot of economic growth came from the assumption population would stay the same.

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