How will be new way of living by 2050 and beyond?

 

As I begin this article, I must confess that, I am not a futurist, astrologist by training or by reputation. I am just an ordinary, logically thinking person of this earth and trying imagine the world 2050.

The earth will be home for more 9 billion people by 2050. As per, 2022 World Population by Country (worldpopulationreview.com), the world has already about 7.9 billion people already (which gives a live dashboard on its portal). In other words, 1.5 billion people more than the current level of population. Or we will be adding almost equivalent population of either China/India in the next 28 years.

However, this growth is happening only in African continent, and part of the Asian Continent. The rest of world is going to see their population aging and they would be needing more and more immigrants, robots, automation and other technological advancement in healthcare to sustain themselves economically.

1.     Country boundaries will mean less and less important: The digital technology has made communication, and small businesses to take place for ordinary citizens of India, Africa, China and other developed nations seamlessly already.

I would like to give a personal account of this as well. When I started my journey as an entrepreneur, mid of last year, I had to design my business logos (for my organization and podcast) and also get some creatives done. I could get professionals through the gig network (Fiverr - Freelance Services Marketplace) from across many countries like Philippines, Bangladesh, UK, & Pakistan to get my work done. My whole objective was to get done what I wanted at the most economical way in a very professional and transparent set up. This would have been unthinkable may be 10 years back to get something done professionally by a start-up entrepreneur. I think, the technology, and economics will drive more of this and many more in every week, month, years and decades. Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung and all other technology companies are driving this, making the economic world a monolith of professionals and businesses intermingled and creating the future innovations in the products and services for the entire world.

I foresee a lot young and professionals from the growing population countries of Asia and Africa to become the world travellers and immigrants to contribute with their skills and professions into other countries where more people are getting older and will need a lot of health support as they get older. And this is not limiting to just healthcare but across the entire gamut of economic activity to sustain an economy.

 

2.     Living together in Joint Family will become the new trend: Technology is already driving the concept of work from anywhere a reality. At least for the software and related industry. One can sit at home anywhere in the world and be part of any world class tech company or even smaller start-ups. The manufacturing and service industry will however will continue to work in the physical mode. However, the tech and digital space will outgrow the physical mode of industry, because of majorly two reasons, 1. The technology usages will be multiple every passing year and hence a greater number of people have to be employed to work in that space. 2. The world will move towards a minimalistic physical possession as, the more we produce any physical product, the associated impact by the process to the environment will become unsustainable and uneconomical.

Also, we have seen how the Covid19 pandemic came and created havoc across the globe in matter of few months. We all learnt to live our lives in a new adapted way. The world may see more such natural challenges as we are not doing enough to protect the earth from our ruthless pursuit to squeeze out more from the mother earth. So, we could be facing challenges with respect to environment as well as health (no one knows when the next pandemic will hit us?)

As per https://censusindia.gov.in/, India has 121 Crore population in 2011. And it reported that about 87%, Indian families have home to live. Since then, we have added 20 crores more population in the country. As we add more to the population of our country, there will be more gaps of those families who have their own home and who don’t. And the gap will only widen. The story similar or worse in the other Asian and African countries where the population will grow between the 2022 to 2050/60 period.

 

In view of the above facts, living together as a joint family may become a more logical way of life, so that, we can support each other faster in the times of need, work from home, and reduce the impact of environment by not adding another home for the same family rather have that resources available for others. Thus, try and address the gaps of equality. I am not predicting that the world will become more utopian, but this may be driven by economic, environmental and emotional reason to move in this direction.

 

3.    Carbon Tax will become a reality for the ordinary people soon:

This concept is still partially implemented in few countries in different avatars. The need to move towards and net zero emission will drive the need for huge investment in renewable energy and reduction the carbon emission. Every product/service producer will have to pay the prices for the carbon emission. And obviously the ultimate customer/user has to pay the price. With every passing year, I foresee the greater need to move towards the carbon tax on every product and service.

By 2050, GST and Carbon tax could be almost equal in proportion, because one is feeding the nation’s economy and other is funding Carbon neutrality drive for the country. With such tax structure, we might see the Income tax reduced drastically, as people are already paying a big sum in the form of GST and Carbon tax.