What's Changing? - Society

Please see below selected recent society-related change.

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What's New? - Society

December 2020

The Financial Times put it succinctly, the “virus lays bare the frailty of the social contract.” They made the case that “policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes” should now be on the table. Companies have a role in helping create an equitable redistribution happen, too, through positive advocacy for change and their own policies. A number of apparel brands like Adidas, Patagonia, Matter, and Everlane embrace living wages in the supply chain.
BCG noted that is that there is increasing focus on using big data to support the UN SDGs. The UN has put forth specific big data mega-use-cases and has launched the Global Pulse initiative to bring the power of big data and artificial intelligence to bear on the SDGs. Many of the UN’s use cases leverage telecom, mobile, search, and sentiment data from social media. Over the last four years, UN experts and business leaders have met annually at the UN World Data Forum to discuss these and other opportunities.

October 2020

EY argued that our social contracts have been on an unsustainable trajectory for years, thanks to rising income inequality and challenges such as climate change. COVID-19 has exacerbated inequality, further straining social contracts - but also boosting the motivation to strengthen them. Company leaders will be called on to help repair social contracts and address societal challenges.

July 2020

In The social contract in the 21st century: Outcomes so far for workers, consumers, and savers in advanced economies, the McKinsey Global Institute took an in-depth look at changes in 22 advanced economies in Asia, Europe, and North America, covering 57 percent of global GDP. Among the findings: while opportunities for work have expanded and employment rates have risen to record levels in many countries, work polarisation and income stagnation are real and widespread. The cost of many discretionary goods and services has fallen sharply, but basic necessities such as housing, healthcare, and education are absorbing an ever-larger proportion of incomes. Coupled with wage stagnation effects, this is eroding the welfare of the bottom three quintiles of the population by income level (roughly 500 million people in 22 countries). Public pensions are being scaled back - and roughly the same three quintiles of the population do not or cannot save enough to make up the difference.

December 2018

Students addressed societal issues from around the world, from post-colonialism to mental health, ageing, inequality and migration. Using photographs, film and text, the students presented a visual exploration of their chosen subject.

November 2018

Researchers created an artificial society to investigate religious conflict. The model found that two xenophobic groups that are in regular contact create “periods of mutually escalating anxiety”. In practice, such a policy would create moral concerns about separating and confining groups based on identity, as well as whether dividing groups based on religion should be a goal in any society, noted Quartz.

October 2018

Is it really true that we’ve never been more divided as a society? And if it is, how did it happen and what can be done? Those are the big questions being investigated on Polarised, the new podcast from the RSA exploring the political and cultural forces driving us further apart.

September 2018

Too often we take for granted and neglect our libraries, parks, markets, schools, playgrounds, gardens and communal spaces, warned the RSA, but decades of research now show that these places can have an extraordinary effect on our personal and collective wellbeing. Why? Because wherever people cross paths and linger, wherever we gather informally, strike up a conversation and get to know one another, relationships blossom and communities emerge – and where communities are strong, people are safer and healthier, crime drops and commerce thrives, and peace, tolerance and stability take root.

August 2018

July 2018

June 2018

Without succumbing to politically-motivated "Big Society" mantras, we can nevertheless realise that there is a huge untapped potential in civil society and the individuals within it. If we listened more to the surviving members of the "make do and mend" generation that got through the 1930s, WWII and its bleak aftermath, might we learn again not just self-sufficiency, but also a way of pulling together towards a common purpose? But what should that common purpose be anyway? The fat years (for some) of recent times seemed to lead to increasing isolation from one another, as we retreated inside both our traditional brick and our new digital fortresses, so who is now going to articulate a non-utopian shared vision of what "getting better" should mean for society as a whole?
Further reading:

May 2018

April 2018

February 2018

January 2018

What would it take to build a more just society? In contemporary debates about justice, identity is frequently front and centre, but the 20th-century American philosopher John Rawls thought that looking past identity was the key to more equality. In his book A Theory of Justice (1971), Rawls argued that if we could build a society from behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ that kept us from knowing anything about our identity, we would make choices resulting in a fairer society than we now have – one in which all would benefit from greater freedom and ‘fair equality of opportunity’.
Artificial Intelligence will create 2.3 mn jobs by 2020 - Rediff.com Get Ahead
Edelman Trust Barometer 2018: There has been a "resurgence of expert voices" — Quartz
Flour power: why every revolution begins with a piece of bread | Prospect Magazine
How advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth | McKinsey & Company
Is the "Inclusive Development Index" a better measure of progress than GDP? — Quartz
The liberal international order is sick - FT
Towards a Reskilling Revolution A Future of Jobs for All - World Economic Forum
World Poverty Has Plummeted—But Will It Ever Disappear?
Your life is getting better. These 5 charts can prove it. | World Economic Forum

December 2017

November 2017

October 2017

Globalisation: what people think - Raconteur

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Women could add $28T to the global economy by 2025 - Daily Sabah

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The world order in 2030 - European Council on Foreign Relations

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October

12 Keys to the Workplace of the Future - Morning Star Self-Management Institute
Picture the Business Services corporation of the future , reinvented and revitalised by global megatrends - PwC
Global Megatrends: A User's Guide to the Next Decade - PwC Spark
Malvertising: the new silent killer - Content Loop
New Business Models in a World of Change - Global Trends
Paintings reveal what people in 1900 thought the year 2000 would look like - The Independent
The first smart drugs are coming and they could change the way we take medicine - Business Insider
Travellers Predict the Future of Travel: Face Recognition Technology, Hologram Personal Trainers and Underwater Hotels by 2030 - Business Wire

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The world in transition - The Economist

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In a recent lecture at Oxford University, Al Gore expounded on six different drivers of global change; Earth Inc; emergence of the “Global Mind”; the Biotech Revolution; Changing Governance Structure & Power Relations; Growth as the “Holy Grail” and Climate Change.

KPMG's Future State 2030 claims to identify nine global megatrends that are most salient to the future of governments. While they are highly interrelated, the megatrends can broadly be grouped into trends reflecting changes in the status and expectations of individuals, changes in the global economy and changes in the physical environment.

PwC US identified nine key technological, economic, and political trends for CEOs to consider. That so many trends are cresting at the same time only complicates the challenges CEOs face. But by looking at how they affect companies, and understanding how they can prepare to meet these challenges, CEOs can increase their chances for success.The nine trends include: disruptive innovation, managing cost and complexity, convergence, consumerisation of IT, the changing dynamics between developing and developed countries, social media, data explosion, IP and data protection, and the changing political and regulatory landscape.

A diverse group of global leaders is calling for a radical shake-up in politics and business to deliver progress on climate change, reduce economic inequality, improve corporate practices and address the chronic burden of disease. Now for the Long Term, published today by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, is the product of a year long process of research and debate undertaken by a group of eminent leaders on the successes and failures in addressing global challenges over recent decades.

The UK government's Global strategic trends out to 2040 report argued that the era out to 2040 will be a time of transition; this is likely to be characterised by instability, both in the relations between states, and in the relations between groups within states. During this timeframe the world is likely to face the reality of a changing climate, rapid population growth, resource scarcity, resurgence in ideology, and shifts in global power from West to East.

Claiming that the need two bold strategies to capitalise on the dynamism of our times has never been greater, Deloitte executives outlined eight trends that it believe are shaping the competitive futures of firms - the trends centre on such themes as responsibility, talent and emerging markets.

The IMD “Competitiveness Roadmap” is an attempt to describe and assess the main issues that will affect the world competitiveness landscape over the next four decades. Issues are shown along two axes - degree of impact and timescale - to provide a clear “mental map” of the environment in which nations and companies will operate. This is a subjective assessment which aims to bring some coherence to the multitude of issues that are said to be having an impact – sooner or later – on the competitiveness landscape. These issues are succinctly described on the fold-out pages.

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