Transition to the age of talent – Part 2: demographics

We’re entering a decade of transition that will change our entire economy and the social contracts we have. We’re currently in a perfect storm of different developments that power this transition. In a short series I’ll describe every one of these elements of this perfect storm and why this means the very fabric of our societies will change. And why I think we’re moving to the age of talent.

This second part is about the effects of de demographic changes in the world. As we’re talking numbers, let’s start with some numbers. The world’s demographics are still shaped like a pyramid. However, the US demographics are shaped like male boobs and a beer belly, the EU is a woman with a large chest and rather thin body, but this is very different between different countries and China is shaped like a Chinese Pagoda. But the reality is that in the west and in China we’re all top heavy while in many developing countries there is plenty of young talent available. We’re all moving towards Japan, that also has two bumps, but at higher ages.

These demographics are very substantial to the way our societies operate. All our economies are built on the premise of growth, but as Thomas Piketty has shown in his book Capital in the 21st century, most of our growth came from population growth rather than production growth. We’ve seen a very limited and decline growth in productivity ever since the 1980’s, with a small bump around the 2000’s when the internet was truly adopted in our processes. I’m not going to try and discuss what might or might not be the reason behind this, but especially in Europe it might be the case that healthcare grew from 10% of GDP to 20% of GDP since the 1980’s and that’s a sector where innovation to increase productivity has been limited.

And with demographics as they are and people also living longer, the system is going to crash. Currently 20% of all working people in the Netherlands are working in healthcare and this needs to increase to 25% because of the aging population.

So all the richest countries in the world have a stagnant or decreasing and an aging population. This means more and more people will need to work in care or care needs to be organized very differently.

But this also means that economic models built on growth need to be redesigned. As growth because of increasing population is out the window and the only way we can even replenish the current population is by immigration. And since every election in Europe and the USA seems to indicate that’s not the solution most prefer, demographics are a very important second part of what fuels the transition we’re in.

Bas is a professional snoop. He's a futurist with a focus on the world of work, recruitment and HR technology.

He's a much requested speaker on events all over the world.

His recent book it called Talent Acquisition Excellence.

He organises Digitaal-Werven