Preview: Development & Its Crossings
Andrew J. Scott is Professor at the London Business School and a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford University and the Centre for Economic Policy Research. Lynda Gratton is Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School, where she directs the programme, ‘Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Companies’. Gratton has authored eight other books on business and HR strategy, which have been widely acclaimed world over. She has won the Tata Prize in India.
In The New Long Life: A Framework for Flourishing in a Changing World, the authors examine a complex modern day conundrum, the falling apart of a system that previous generations had learnt to take for granted, namely the three stages of life. For generations, humankind has spent the first stage growing up and getting educated. The second stage was spent working, making money and raising children. The third stage was spent in retirement.
In the generations before us, the three-stage life largely worked, at least in the developed world. It allowed many to support a family, buy a house and look forward to living off a pension. This pattern is now falling apart.
Scott and Lynda Gratton have used facts, figures, quotes and real-life results of scientific studies and surveys to buttress their point. By 2050, the authors say, there will be 438 million Chinese above the age of 65. In Japan, one in every five persons will be over the age of eighty. Children born in the developed world have more than a 50 per cent chance of living past a hundred. In 1950, population had not declined in a single country , but between now and 2050, more than 50 countries will see their populations dwindle. Thanks to higher productivity, people earn more, have time for leisure and overall have a better standard of living.
Technology is transforming the workplace too and is a key force in the design of work. Today more than two million robots operate around the world, mostly in manufacturing, with the highest concentration in South Korea, which has fifty robots per thousand people. Living standards do not improve immediately with every technological disruption, however, the authors point out, which in turn, proves to be both an economic and psychological burden. Longevity is making people think hard about what constitutes work. The authors say, we are in an age when the gap between technological ingenuity and social ingenuity is widening.
The two loneliest groups are the young and the old, according to Scott and Gratton, who believe that society must forge bonds between these two groups. This tome loaded with insight into some critical puzzles of the day.
