curiously little heed is paid to why the West is aging. Our gathering senescence is routinely referenced like an inexorable force of nature, a process beyond our control, like the shifting of tectonic plates or the ravages of a hurricane. To the contrary, age structure is profoundly within human control. Remarkably resistant to governmental manipulation, it is the sum total of millions of single, deeply private decisions by people like me and a startlingly large proportion of my friends and acquaintances. We haven’t had kids.
