Welcome, America, to the Baby Bust

Unable to find enough young people to flip its Big Macs, McDonald's has launched a recruiting program called McMasters to entice older Americans into staffing its grills and cash registers. Competitor Wendy's offers cash incentives, scholarships and "career ladders" to hang on to teenage employees. Dow Chemical, vilified on college campuses during the Viet Nam War for manufacturing napalm, is reaching out to young people in television commercials that show freshly minted college graduates signing on to help feed the world. Across the U.S., colleges are out hustling for freshmen in innovative ways: the University of Rochester offers a tuition-free fifth...