My understanding is that part of this panic is due to how society is structured somewhat as a pyramid scheme. Social benefits to retirees are expected to come from the economic productivity of a younger working class. Large businesses which are designed to make high-level execs wealthy at the expense of their lowest-level employees require a steady stream of fresh meat. I think some of the economic changes we're seeing is related to declining fertility rates.

As with everything, it has pros and cons. If you care more about the environment than the economy, then I guess it's a good thing.

The problem is that we have structured our entire system essentially as a pyramid scheme, where the ever more children coming from behind will mean that the standard of living keeps increasing.

As with every pyramid scheme, once enrollment stops, then the pyramid collapses.

I think theoretically, it's not necessarily about more and more children being born, but rather about productivity increasing. As long as generations manage to be increasingly more productive, then the pyramid keeps going. Obviously, population and output are heavily correlated, hence the issue.

Given how bleak the outlook is at the moment for the people coming into their parenthood years, I don't think anyone can blame them for not wanting to procreate.

Its good for the planet, but in the short to medium term people are worried that the burden of caring for a growing elderly population (who control the politics and capital) will fall on a dwindling number of youthful taxpayers

Who is going to pay your pension and wipe your incontinent butt? Population decline may be fine but we need new economic and social models to support an older population.

Many theories of economic growth say that it is fundamentally generated by new ideas. When you have fewer people, you have fewer new ideas. So innovation might slow: in some models it even reverses.

We’ve borrowed trillions of dollars from future generations, and have guaranteed ourselves trillions more in retirement benefits.

If the population goes down, each individual is going to have a massive burden of debt and taxation to shoulder. And you can imagine a scenario where this creates a feedback loop of dramatic economic decline.