people facing a massive die off due to something like smallpox might view it as a crisis
First, "There is no crisis" refers to birthrates, not smallpox. Second, by "crisis" I mean existential crises, not personal. Even the black plague was not an existential crisis. For comparison, the Ottoman and Mongol expansions were.
because of the many reasons
Every western country has had its birthrate drop as the economy and education levels improved. It's a very solid correlation, and almost certainly the real reason. But people still say, "I can't afford children" (or whatever), even if the real reason is their large and distracting discretionary income. People rationalize, and certainly don't understand their own motivations.
Obviously people aren't dying off or anything. What 'crisis' refers to is the fact that many couples in certain countries feel they can't have kids.
Clearly it's a complex issue, but the whole point of the article is that the birth rate varies quite a bit from country to country: Japan and Italy have very low rates, places like France and Sweden do better.
First, "There is no crisis" refers to birthrates, not smallpox. Second, by "crisis" I mean existential crises, not personal. Even the black plague was not an existential crisis. For comparison, the Ottoman and Mongol expansions were.
because of the many reasons
Every western country has had its birthrate drop as the economy and education levels improved. It's a very solid correlation, and almost certainly the real reason. But people still say, "I can't afford children" (or whatever), even if the real reason is their large and distracting discretionary income. People rationalize, and certainly don't understand their own motivations.