Event · era
The Purpose Famine
2040s–2100s
"Vocational grief" and drift; fertility below one in many cities.
Read more in The Hollowing
The Purpose Famine (2040s–2100s). Income is partly solved through dividends and rationing; meaning is not. Researchers later identify "vocational grief" as a distinct syndrome. Suicide, addiction and what clinicians call drift — people who stop forming intentions — rise in rich and poor regions alike. Fertility falls below one child per woman in many cities, compounding the Contraction.