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Birth rates keep falling. We need to confront reality.

Here’s how America can age gracefully.

Let’s face it: Another baby boom isn’t coming anytime soon.

The latest round of US birth data, released earlier this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show the general fertility rate has dropped to a new record low of 53.1 per 1,000 females between 15 and 44 — a 23 percent decrease since the most recent peak in 2007.

It’s the latest data point in a long global trend toward fewer children, which means our already aging populace will get even older over time, with fewer young workers to handle the economy and take care of the elderly in their twilight years. About one in eight Americans were over the age of 65 at the turn of the millennium; by 2040, it will be nearly one in five.

The numbers set off a predictable round of hand-wringing over who to blame. Commentators on the right bemoaned “Girl-boss feminism,” with some even wishing for a return to more teen pregnancies, while those on the left have been pointing the finger squarely at America’s weak family policies like the lack of paid family leave and affordable child care.

The fact is, however, that the trend lines are unlikely to reverse regardless of one’s preferred explanation.

It is possible to prepare for a nation — and a world — with fewer children that’s both functional and pleasant to live in.

No low-birth country in the world, from the most repressive misogynistic regimes to the most progressive governments offering generous leave and free childcare, has been able to put their society on a path back to “replacement level” fertility. Establishing the enabling conditions so people can form the families they desire is a worthy goal deserving attention, but the hour grows late and it’s time to start talking seriously about how to adapt for an aging, low-birth society.

We can’t get any younger as a society but we can try to get wiser with age. With a little foresight, it is possible to prepare for a nation — and a world — with fewer children that’s both functional and pleasant to live in.

It won’t happen on its own, though. America needs a national-level effort to futureproof the country against demographic changes, with all the physical, economic, political, and cultural shifts that will entail.

Such an effort does not only have to come from the federal government (which is, at........

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