TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

Global Context
The most significant global demographic trend drivers and issues have been identified as
follows.
1. The world’s population growth will probably see the 8 billion mark exceeded by
2030. Urban populations will grow fastest, rising from around 3.3 billion people in
2007 to almost 5 billion by 2030, while the rural population will remain stable at
about 3.3 billion throughout. During the scenario period, therefore, it is urban
areas which will absorb all the growth of the world’s total population.
2. Migration is likely to increase rapidly over the next few decades, giving rise to
burning social, economic and political issues in many receiving and sending countries
alike.
3. Demographics will strongly shape the various patterns of demands on pension and
health systems, as well as more generally on economic and social conditions
including such intangibles as entrepreneurship, attitude towards authority and
appetite for change.
4. Gross inequalities between rich and poor nations will continue to grow in a world of
around 4.5billion poor people, 25 billion aspirants and something over a billion
citizens of wealthy nations. The first group creating less than 1% of world product,
while the last creates over 85%.
5. The stunning size and scale of megacities (cities with more than 10million people)
will rise and proliferate over the next 25 years, with almost 400 million people
having homes in the biggest 25 cities, and well over 300 cities in the developing
world boasting a populations of over a million.
6. People in the development world will live longer, not least because there will be
numerous improvements in the prevention of disease through more effective means
of preventing strokes, heart attacks and cancer, with customised gene therapy,
prosthetics, regenerative medicines, nanotechnology and other advances in
gerontology providing hitherto unimaginable cures. Transhumanism is here.
7. Generally, there will be intergenerational instability. For, with increasing global
influences, notions of obligation and loyalty among generations are shifting, with
new attitudes, social contracts and uncertainties emerging.
8. In particular, the phenomenon known as ‘the global teenager’ will become a
powerful demographic force. Connected, communicating, concerned, cyclical,
idealistic, ambitious, global youth could exercise enormous social, economic and
political power – but in what direction?
9. Most developed nations will face a ‘grey future’ as their populations age and elderly
dependency ratios rise.
10. In both the developed and developing world family structures are becoming more
and more diverse, and the next couple of decades could well witness the issue of
‘family’ becoming central in all aspects of public policy.
71