Will Old People and Robots Dominate the Future?

I've discussed the future role that robots might play in human society several times over the years--first in 2011, and most recently just last month. And, of course, I've blogged a lot about aging because the richer countries, in particular, are almost obsessed about the perceived negative consequences of the transition to a higher proportion of people being older (e.g., 65+). If you follow the interesting posts of John Mauldin, as I do (following up on a reader's recommendation several years ago), you may already have read his summary of his recent Strategic Investment Conference held here in San Diego last week. I was especially intrigued by his description of Karen Harris's presentation (she's from the Macro Trends Group at Bain & Company).

Last month Karen’s group issued a magnum opus report called “Labor 2030: The Collision of Demographics, Automation and Inequality.”...Bain thinks automation will eliminate up to 25% of US jobs by 2030, with the lower-wage tiers getting hit the hardest and soonest. That will be devastating, and it’s not that far away...Why is this happening? Demographics and automation are mutually reinforcing trends. One we already see: Employers turn to automation increasingly because they can’t find workers with the skills they need in sufficient numbers. The Baby Boom generation is leaving the workforce (though many Boomers are delaying retirement as long as they can). The additional labor that came from one-time factors like China’s opening has mostly run its course. If sufficient numbers of qualified people aren’t available, employer turn to machines.

Notice in the graph above from the Bain Group that greater inequality is one of the projected dimensions of this future scenario. As Mauldin notes:

The result will be even more inequality between lower-wage workers, highly skilled professionals, and business owners. That will create a variety of problems, one of which is consumption growth. The small number of wealthy people at the top can only spend so much. They save most of their income. Lower-income people spend more of their income. This pattern will only intensify.

Mauldin tends to be politically conservative and so is not too happy about the likely prospect that there will be calls for the wealthy to pay more in taxes to keep society afloat. This is, in fact, exactly the issue raised by Steven Ruggles in 2015 in his Presidential Address to the Population Association of America, as I noted at the time. Keep in mind that the U.S. population is aging, but not nearly as quickly as most European and East Asian societies. As automation and artificial intelligence replace the younger workers who are not being born, and people work longer into older age, a bit of transfer from the wealthy to everyone else is the likely answer to keep the country on track.

Irregular Migration from Africa to Europe Has Been Shifting

Dr. Debbie Fugate's visit here to San Diego State University was a reminder to us all to stay on top of the incredibly detailed and useful maps that she and her staff put together at the State Department's Humanitarian Information Unit. The maps are technically generated for use by the White House and the Secretary of State, and the U.S. government more generally, but the unclassified versions are available online to the rest of us. The most recent map details the trends in irregular ("undocumented") migration from Africa to Europe. Here's what is looks like, but you need to download it yourself to clearly see all of the information that is conveyed:

Here are two key summaries of what's going on:

1. Although European and African efforts to reduce irregular migration have successfully lowered overall numbers entering Europe, some migrants are transiting increasingly hazardous smuggling routes across the Sahara Desert and Mediterranean Sea, risking human rights abuses and indefinite detention. The UN’s voluntary humanitarian return program assisted over 19,000 migrants to return to their home countries from Libya in 2017, up from around 3,000 assisted migrant returns from Libya in 2016. An estimated 400,000–700,000 migrants live in detention in Libya.

2. UN agencies estimate that more migrants may die attempting to cross the Sahara than the Mediterranean.

Empowering Women: Show Me the Money!

It is too bad that we have to have a single day to try to remind the world that women are at least as important as men. Of all the things that are being written about and discussed on this International Women's Day, my view is that money is the most important. When people are equally compensated, society is sending the obvious message that they are, in fact, equal. My older son, John, is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland--a point I make not simply to brag, but to note that he knows what is required to get organizations to wipe out the gender pay gap. He sent me a link to a very informative story on this score from today's Financial Times. Here's what's going on in France:

Emmanuel Macron’s feminist activism is expected to extend further into the realm of business this month, when the French president outlines a plan to close the country’s 25 per cent gender pay gap. It is high time: Mr Macron, who has chosen the fight for gender equality as the “grande cause nationale” of his presidency, is the first French leader in three decades to show a willingness to tackle a problem that even the country’s feminists have long ignored.

Some companies have been creative in addressing the question, says Ms Trostiansky, a former diversity manager at Crédit Agricole, France’s largest retail banking group. For the past 10 years, LCL, formerly Crédit Lyonnais and now part of Crédit Agricole, has been closely monitoring its pay gap to smooth out abnormal differences. The bank is doing so by using several metrics to correct biases. Not only must individual bonuses and pay increases be the same on average for women and men, but also the number of women benefiting from pay increases must at least equal the number of men receiving a rise.

So, these and other examples in the Financial Times story help provide a road map for improving the income levels of women relative to men. Over time, of course, more money can lead to more wealth. There is still a lot of ground to be made up there, as today's Economist points out in a story comparing the wealthiest men and women in the world:

The top 10 richest humans are all men, 7 of whom are American. We have to get down to #16 to find the wealthiest woman, Alice Walton (of Walmart fame), who is also American. Yes, there's still a lot of work to do!

Was the Agricultural Revolution History's Greatest Fraud?

I mentioned a few days ago that I had read (and enjoyed) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. Enjoying it does not mean, however, that I agreed with everything. In particular, I strongly disagree with his “signature” revelation in the book—his belief that the agricultural revolution was the biggest fraud in history. Here’s his synopsis of that idea, from page 79 of his book:

Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers. Hunter-gatherers spent their time in more stimulating and varied ways, and were less in danger of starvation and disease. The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud.2

The reference (2) at the end of that paragraph refers to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. I like that book and reference it in mine, and was sure that Diamond had never made such an assertion about the Agricultural Revolution. I grabbed my copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel and found that I was right—he had not. Harari just made this stuff up. Diamond is quoted on the cover of Harari’s book, but he never actually says that he agrees with Harari.

When I finished the book, I went online looking for reviews to see if people had the same reaction I did (a reaction predicted by my older son, John, who had recommended that I read the book). Behold, there was review by none other than Bill Gates who, as I recently noted, is clearly becoming a demographer. Here is what he says, and I don’t think I could have said it better:

As much as I enjoyed Sapiens, there was plenty to disagree with in the book. For example, Harari sets out to prove that the agricultural revolution was one of the biggest mistakes in human history. Yes, it allowed civilizations to thrive, but on an individual level, he writes, we were much better off as hunter-gatherers. As farmers, people had to work a lot harder and in exchange they had a worse diet than they had as foragers. Agricultural societies also created social hierarchies in which the majority toiled as peasants and a minority of elites ruled over them.

That’s certainly a provocative argument, but I wasn’t convinced. First, arguing that we were happier as hunter-gatherers than as farmers creates a choice when there isn’t one. It’s not as if we can turn back the clock and restart as hunter-gatherers or we can run an experiment to prove one way of life is better than the other. Second, I think Harari underestimates the hardships of being a hunter-gatherer. He suggests that death and violence rates were much lower in hunter-gatherer societies than after the agricultural revolution. But it’s more likely the violence was higher because of competition over resources. A farming society can support many more people per square mile than a hunter-gathering society. In order to keep population densities low, conflict was inevitable among groups of hunter- gatherers. Finally, calling the shift to agriculture a “mistake” overlooks the fact that farming societies were able to specialize, leading to written languages, new technologies, and art—all things we value today.

Dr. Fugate Visits From Washington, DC

This coming Friday, the Geography Department at San Diego State University will be hosting one of its illustrious alums--Dr. Debbie Fugate, from the U.S. State Department.

Dr. Debbie Fugate is the Deputy Director of the Office of The Geographer and Global Issues in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the U.S. Department of State. The office provides timely, independent analysis on a range of global issues to inform foreign policy decisions. She co-directs the research and analysis of the office, including work on civilian security, health and environment, human rights, migration and refugees, trafficking, and war crimes. She reports directly to The Geographer of the United States, a position that was established in 1921 and bears the statutory responsibility for providing guidance to all federal agencies on international boundaries and sovereignty.

Debbie oversees the Humanitarian Information Unit (HIU), an interagency unit that produces written and visual analytics on humanitarian challenges and complex emergencies worldwide. The HIU employs geographic methods and technologies, serves as an information-sharing node, and manages projects that facilitate the creation of geospatial data. She is also Director of the Secondary Cities Initiative, a field-based program that engages communities to build capacity in geospatial science and open data with partnerships addressing disaster preparedness and urban resiliency in secondary cities globally.

You'll know from my past posts (here's the most recent) that she and I co-edited a volume on The Youth Bulge: Challenge or Opportunity?, as well as a variety of papers and chapters. We are happy to have her "back home" for this talk (with reception to follow). Please join us if in you're in the area!