But even here, unless life threatening situations, people will postpone action. (eg. drugs instead of surgery, disinfectant, ...)

With education I beg to differ: although it may look like a safe heaven, pursuing education for the sole purpose of temporary financial stability is probably not that smart. Reasons:

     - practical experience is more valuable and if not truly committed to the PhD, don't really see the value
     - state funding for schools & research will drop (later, true, but it will).
     - if everybody (or the majority) will go to school, who's going to do the work to come out of the crises.