I'm an avid George Friedman reader, and one of the scenarios in his book "The Next 100 Years" got me thinking.
In the book, Friedman notes the major demographic imbalance the USA and most developed nations are facing, a topic we're all familiar with. Our fertility rates have dropped precipitously in the past few decades.
The Baby Boomers have had far fewer children than their parents did, creating a disproportionately aged population.
I'm twenty years old, and I started thinking about the socio-economic implications of this for people like me. We all know about the problem this presents for social security and all that, but there's another outcome Friedman highlighted: a decline in unemployment.
It makes sense. Baby boomers currently control everything the USA and most of the west. They have the VAST majority of the wealth as well. When they start retiring en masse (should begin right around 2020 or so), this nation is going to face a massive skills shortage. These people will vacate their jobs, but they won't quit consuming or demanding services. Someone will still need to work to service them, but the population to draw from to do this will be much smaller.
This could potentially lead to much higher demand for a lower supply of employees, which in turn leads to low unemployment and much higher wages. There will be tremendous opportunity for those few in my generation who have built tangible experience or qualifications over time , as they are going to be in very high demand across the western world (not even including developing countries who will always value quality western educated applicants and might begin suffering their own brain drains, as I'm about to mention).
This gets even more interesting when you start thinking on a more global scale. Friedman notes that developed nations will try to deal with this by trying to lure more immigrants, competing with one another for these migrants.
Their arrival could boost the tax base enough to mitigate the increased strain/tax burden that would presumably be placed on the younger generation supporting the larger baby boomer populace. At the same time, however, homegrown members of my generation educated in the west will have an edge over newer immigrants. Immigrants could mitigate the downsides my generation will face, but because they will be new and relatively few of them will have been educated in their home countries with the same skills as homegrowns, they won't be in quite as high demand.
End result? My generation might make a killing, holding a monopoly as the most sought after employees best prepared to tackle the future job market. The world's current elite (almost all baby boomers) will be leaving their posts soon, and there will be an abundance of opportunities to usurp that space for the members of Generation X who will be in their prime (30's-40's) when the full force of this baby bust hits in the next decade or so. They'll have low unemployment, high wages, and plenty of economic options.
The question for Gen Xers (of which there are many on this forum) is: how best to take advantage of this development?
In the book, Friedman notes the major demographic imbalance the USA and most developed nations are facing, a topic we're all familiar with. Our fertility rates have dropped precipitously in the past few decades.
The Baby Boomers have had far fewer children than their parents did, creating a disproportionately aged population.
I'm twenty years old, and I started thinking about the socio-economic implications of this for people like me. We all know about the problem this presents for social security and all that, but there's another outcome Friedman highlighted: a decline in unemployment.
It makes sense. Baby boomers currently control everything the USA and most of the west. They have the VAST majority of the wealth as well. When they start retiring en masse (should begin right around 2020 or so), this nation is going to face a massive skills shortage. These people will vacate their jobs, but they won't quit consuming or demanding services. Someone will still need to work to service them, but the population to draw from to do this will be much smaller.
This could potentially lead to much higher demand for a lower supply of employees, which in turn leads to low unemployment and much higher wages. There will be tremendous opportunity for those few in my generation who have built tangible experience or qualifications over time , as they are going to be in very high demand across the western world (not even including developing countries who will always value quality western educated applicants and might begin suffering their own brain drains, as I'm about to mention).
This gets even more interesting when you start thinking on a more global scale. Friedman notes that developed nations will try to deal with this by trying to lure more immigrants, competing with one another for these migrants.
Their arrival could boost the tax base enough to mitigate the increased strain/tax burden that would presumably be placed on the younger generation supporting the larger baby boomer populace. At the same time, however, homegrown members of my generation educated in the west will have an edge over newer immigrants. Immigrants could mitigate the downsides my generation will face, but because they will be new and relatively few of them will have been educated in their home countries with the same skills as homegrowns, they won't be in quite as high demand.
End result? My generation might make a killing, holding a monopoly as the most sought after employees best prepared to tackle the future job market. The world's current elite (almost all baby boomers) will be leaving their posts soon, and there will be an abundance of opportunities to usurp that space for the members of Generation X who will be in their prime (30's-40's) when the full force of this baby bust hits in the next decade or so. They'll have low unemployment, high wages, and plenty of economic options.
The question for Gen Xers (of which there are many on this forum) is: how best to take advantage of this development?
Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.