Tracking the future. Daniel Silke
and corporate values about employing the aged will need to change drastically.
Another option that is certainly controversial is to encourage a migration of older immigrants from the developed to the developing world. Already, retired Americans find favourable conditions in a country like Costa Rica. Retirement complexes with outstanding medical facilities have resulted in thousands of elderly Americans moving to this Central American country that many can’t even pin on a map. Although it is a niche industry (but not unlike cosmetic or dental tourism), developing world countries with superior medical standards, like South Africa, could benefit if such a campaign to lure ageing Americans were launched.
This would give the developing world a chance to improve their medical standards, retain trained practitioners who might be tempted to emigrate, and provide additional employment opportunities locally. Reverse migration may therefore become an unintended consequence of ageing in a developed country that can no longer afford to pay all the bills. This will reduce the burden on entitlement programmes and payments in the ageing West.
For all this talk about age, depopulation and a shortage of youth, there will still be a host of countries around the world where young people will be in oversupply. Ageing might eventually give the world a breather, but the next 40 years will see little of that in key regions. At the moment these are some of the least developed or socially combustible places on the planet.
Remaining population growth continues to be concentrated in some of the most populous countries. An astonishing 70 percent of the world’s population growth between now and 2050 will occur in 24 countries, each classified by the World Bank as low- or middle-income with an average per capita income of under $3 855 in 2008[11].
During 2010–2050, nine countries are expected to account for half of the world’s projected population increase: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, the United States, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Republic of Tanzania, China and Bangladesh, listed according to the size of their contribution to global population growth[12]. The United States and India are the only two nations of this list well placed to take advantage of the youth dividend thanks to better educational and governmental systems and integration into the global economy.
Currently, about nine out of ten children under the age of 15 live in developing countries – the very same countries that will continue to have the world’s highest birth rates. These children and young people constitute an all-time high for the developing world and pose a major challenge to their countries[13].
We have already discussed the profound effect on retail that a growing middle class in the developing world will have. Throughout this book, the rising power of the developing world, based on its population growth, is a recurring trend.
The biggest demographic increase is going to be in Africa. By 2050, roughly 20 percent of the world population is going to be in Africa, up from 9 percent in 1900. A similar trend is true in parts of Asia and the Middle East. In the next decade alone, the youth dividend will be adding 250 million people in Central and South Asia, nine million in Iraq and another nine million in Iran. In Pakistan some 38 million people will be added, making that increase alone half as big as Germany’s entire current head count. In unstable Yemen, the population will increase from 17 million today to 39 million in 2025[14]. Over the next 15 years an additional 20 million will be born in Afghanistan and that population is set to soar to almost 75 million by 2050.
A key characteristic of countries with an expanding youth is that most are Muslim. In 1950 Nigeria, Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt and Indonesia had a combined population of 242 million. By 2009 those six countries were the most populous Muslim majority countries with a combined population of 886 million[15]. By 2050 these nations are likely to add just fewer than 500 million collectively. By contrast, the six most populous developed nations will add a paltry 44 million over the same period.
Employment, education and migration challenges
Looking at the regions set to show the greatest growth, it is no wonder these countries need particular encouragement to provide employment for their rampant populations. The depopulated labour markets of Europe and North America will look increasingly attractive to those desperate to advance themselves. Migration is therefore set once again to rear its head politically (does it ever really disappear?). Ironically, as the West and particularly Europe tighten immigration options following the recession and high levels of domestic unemployment, so the demands from millions of jobless will increase, causing a renewed case of desperation.
The real challenge for the United States with an ageing population is to enhance productivity rather than add labour. In the 1970s some 80 percent of economic growth came from adding labour and only 20 percent from productivity. Over the next decade, the country will need to get 70 percent from productivity and 30 percent from labour. Europe needs to get 100 percent from productivity and Japan needs 160 percent to boost growth and productivity[16]. Just how realistic these estimations are will be severely curtailed by a lack of young people able to do the work in these advanced economies.
Enhanced border controls are perhaps overdue all over the world, but intelligent immigration policies intended to bring skills to ageing societies will have to be revisited and implemented afresh, despite the current tend towards Fortress Europe. Once the West moves out of recession into a sustained period of positive growth (optimistically predicted for the 2015 period and beyond), more liberal immigration policies will have to be considered.
Any forecaster must make the difficult point that the predominant increase of young people in the world is regional, or more significantly and maybe contentiously, religious. If younger people are concentrated in states least likely to allow them to flourish, then radicalisation, alienation and poverty could cause extreme disruption to society or an increasing divide between an ageing North and a desperate South (and near-East), characterised by Berlin Wall-style immigration policies. For all the talk of a population slow-down being positive for the world after 2050, the rebooting of the planet following falling fertility rates could be delayed by a demographic dividend of young people in societies ill-prepared for it.
One of the world’s greatest challenges – and by implication trends – will be to create tomorrow’s computer engineers and scientists from these rising population centres. Sound unlikely? Invest now in concepts akin to Hole in the Wall education[17]. This places free computers in public locations for children in slums and poor villages across India, guided by the concept of Minimally Invasive Education. The theory is that children can learn on their own, in a cost-effective manner, and gain computer literacy by teaching themselves simply through the availability of computers. It is not that unlikely when you think that your ten-year-old son knows much more about how your Mac works than you do – without having had hours of training!
In Chapter 7 we will discuss the profound effect on retail that a growing middle class coming from the developing world will have. If these millions of youth in poorer countries or regions can really grasp educational opportunities through the strengthening of educational resources in their own nations, they will tilt the power balance in the world. Education equals power so we can expect a real focus on advancing educational resources in poorer regions of the world. Along with green technology and a host of other great investment prospects coming from the developing world, look to private–public partnerships or outsourced opportunities when hundreds of millions of students cry out for help in academic studies.
The need to improve relations between Islam and the West
Along with the obvious educational focus, so too must attention be paid to improving relations between the Islamic world and the West. Responsible leadership from both the West and the Muslim world must