Trends Identified
Middle-class progress
The rising tide of progress has not lifted all boats equally. Globalization and automation are polarizing the labor market, with more on the way as expanding machine-learning capabilities increase the automatability of a wide range of tasks in developed and emerging markets alike (Exhibit 8). As middle-wage workers are displaced, many are forced to “trade down,” reducing their income and putting pressure on existing lower wage workers. There is also widening earnings disparity. Workers with advanced degrees have generally seen their earnings rise, while wages for those with only high-school diplomas have stagnated, and wages for those who do not hold a high-school diploma have declined. Youth unemployment has reached 50 percent or more in several major developed economies
2017
The global forces inspiring a new narrative of progress
McKinsey
Migration
The number of international migrants has increased from a total of 75 million a year in 1965, to 191 million a year in 2005 of whom around 10 million are refugees, and up to 40 million are illegal migrants.146 That number may grow to 230 million by 2050.147 Populations in many affluent societies are likely to decline, encouraging economic migration from less wealthy regions.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Militarization following industrialization
As economic power tilts toward Asia, political and military power will shift as well. In China, where defense spending has trended upward in recent years, both in dollar terms and as a proportion of GDP. The stepped up spending is prompting China’s neighbors to respond with bigger defense budgets, increasing the risk of conflict over shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
2011
The great eight: Trillion-dollar growth trends to 2020
Bain and Company
Millennials are the largest adult generation in the United States, but they are starting to share the spotlight with Generation Z.
This year, Millennials, those ages 23 to 38, will outnumber Baby Boomers (ages 55 to 73), according to Census Bureau projections. Now in their young adulthood, Millennials are more educated, more racially and ethnically diverse and slower to marry than previous generations were at the same age. But after growing up in the Great Recession, their economic picture is mixed: Young adult households are earning more than most older Americans did at the same age, but have less wealth than Boomers did at the same age, partly because they are more likely to have higher amounts of student loan debt. Although the nation’s 73 million Millennials are the largest living adult generation, the next one – Generation Z – is entering adulthood. Also known as the post-Millennials, Gen Zers (those born after 1996 – ages 7 to 22 for this analysis) are on track to be the best educated and most diverse generation yet. Nearly half of Gen Zers (48%) are racial or ethnic minorities. Socially and politically, their liberal-leaning opinions on key issues are similar to those of Millennials.
2019
6 demographic trends shaping the U.S. and the world in 2019
Pew Research Center
Millennials are the most digitally savvy generation, but they face tough challenges
While millennials are the most educated across advanced economies, they are also the most underutilised generation.
2017
Surfing the digital tsunami
Australia, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Mind the information and skills gaps
In addition to the fault lines developing geopolitically, CEOs are working to bridge the gaps in their own capabilities. Organisations are struggling to translate a deluge of data into better decision making. There is a shortage of skilled talent to clean, integrate, and extract value from big data and move beyond baby steps toward artificial intelligence (AI). One of the more striking findings in this year’s survey was the fact that — despite billions of dollars of investment1 and priority positioning on the C-suite agenda — the gap between the information CEOs need and what they get has not closed in the past ten years.
2019
22nd Annual global CEO survey
PWC
Minerals
Out to 2040, a range of new factors influencing availability and supplies of certain critical minerals will remain vulnerable to disruption. Demand for minerals is likely to continue to increase in response to population growth, continuing industrialisation and higher material prosperity. New discoveries allied to technological advances will provide sufficient reserves, such that accessibility, rather than availability, is the primary concern.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Minimising Vulnerability and Fostering Resilience: An Investment for the Future of Europe
The ESPAS Report Global Trends to 2030 noted that 'The world is becoming steadily more complex, more challenging and also more insecure'. Since the publication of the Report in 2015, the sense of uncertainty has become even stronger in Europe and elsewhere. The referendum on Brexit, the 2016 US elections, as well as the political conditions in several European countries have demonstrated the risks that even well-established institutional systems can face due to a growing sense of uncertainty and dissatisfaction among citizens with current policies.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Mining Metals from Desalination Brine
As the global population continues to grow and developing countries emerge from poverty, freshwater is at risk of becoming one of the Earth’s most limited natural resources. In addition to water for drinking, sanitation and industry in human settlements, a significant proportion of the world’s agricultural production comes from irrigated crops grown in arid areas. With rivers like the Colorado, the Murray-Darling and the Yellow River no longer reaching the sea for long periods of time, the attraction of desalinating seawater as a new source of freshwater can only increase. Desalination has serious drawbacks, however. In addition to high energy use (a topic covered in last year’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies), the process produces a reject-concentrated brine, which can have a serious impact on marine life when returned to the sea. Perhaps the most promising approach to solving this problem is to see the brine from desalination not as waste, but as a resource to be harvested for valuable materials. These include lithium, magnesium and uranium, as well as the more common sodium, calcium and potassium elements. Lithium and magnesium are valuable for use in high-performance batteries and lightweight alloys, for example, while rare earth elements used in electric motors and wind turbines – where potential shortages are already a strategic concern – may also be recovered. New processes using catalyst-assisted chemistry raise the possibility of extracting these metals from reject desalination brine at a cost that may eventually become competitive with land-based mining of ores or lake deposits. This economic benefit may offset the overall cost of desalination, making it more viable on a large scale, in turn reducing the human pressures on freshwater ecosystems.
2014
Top 10 emerging technologies for 2014
World Economic Forum (WEF)