Hi Emi,
Reading the comments in the linked articles, I see that people have a lot of ideas, but the cause of this shift remains unclear. Perhaps rising inequality is hitting working class sensibilities harder. Perhaps middle aged women see no hope of escape from poverty not just for themselves but also for their children, so they give up.
The proximate causes appear to be drugs, drinking, smoking. We may be seeing loss of morale. In the big picture, humanity is under rising stress as we overload nature's systems. We need everyone at their best and moving together intelligently to tackle our difficulties. We don't want people suffering and dying young and we cannot afford loss of morale at the social level.
So what to do? I think rising inequality blocks any solution, so I would put the reduction of inequality at the top of the list.
