I wonder how worse this "subcritical humanity" problem must get before governments actually treat it like a real problem, instead of taking ineffective token measures like that.

I think it's one of Iain M. Banks' "Outside Context Problems", a problem that governments cannot even see (other than as a labour shortage), let alone understand its causes or what to do about it.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession#Outside_Context_Prob...