For more than a century, we've been in the same pattern:
One generation is having fun, another is learning; One or two generations working under the direction of another; Two generations are in retirement.
Is this the best way to organize our lives? A series of problems plague much of society, and these problems stem from, or are partly caused, from the constraints formed by the pattern of life order. These include adolescent stress, delayed adulthood, teenage motherhood, declining fertility rates, work/family imbalances, midlife crises, career dead ends, generational conflicts, pension gaps, post-retirement loneliness, sexism, economic inequality, and disgruntled consumers.
These problems not only devour us as individuals, but also expose entire societies and countries to unbearable tensions.
To do this, we need to reorganize our lifestyles and move away from rigid sequential patterns that define ourselves and what we do solely by age.
Wharton professor and global trends research expert Morro Guille's forward-looking masterpiece "Multigenerational Society" after "Trends 2030", he interprets us to an alternative way of living in the era of longevity based on global demographic changes and technological waves.
Imagine an evergreen society
Age is both a biological fact and a social and political construct. Medicine and technology are redefining human longevity and healthy longevity, prompting us to adjust long-held social assumptions, perceptions, and expectations about doing different things at different ages.
Now, it is time to reinvent the way we live.
A truly evergreen society should be something like this: it requires a restructuring of the way we live, learn, work and consume. It means increased interaction between generations, as the lines between school and the workplace become more blurred; As for the learning mode, it is mainly a hybrid model of distance learning based on technical support and face-to-face learning.
It provides a less stressful life path for teenagers, allowing them to carefully choose the development path that suits them; They can go back to school multiple times and then replan their careers based on that, without having to make life-threatening decisions without being fully prepared or pressured by their parents.
It enables parents, especially young mothers, to balance work and family responsibilities, reducing the likelihood of having to choose between family and career; At any age, they can return to their families, go back to school, or return to the workforce without having to follow a rigid schedule.
It provides opportunities for those who might otherwise be "left behind" by society, including dropouts and those facing a career dead end due to technological change or economic restructuring.
It provides conditions for retirees or semi-retirees to ensure that they can live a fuller and more financially secure life.
Organizational change
In evergreen societies, the education sector is the sector most likely to change the world, helping us overcome cultural biases and creating new opportunities for us to switch identities back and forth between school and the workplace.
Demographic, economic, and technological transitions will force us into a cycle of learning, forgetting, and relearning many times throughout our lives.
In the 25-year-old and older group, more and more people are learning new skills. (Notably, in the U.S., more than one-third of college students are 25 years of age and older)
On the one hand, they learn new skills through formal schooling; On the other hand, they acquire new skills through a dizzying array of digital avenues, such as data analysis, public speaking, and sketching.
To succeed in your new role, it's important to forget about old habits, procedures, and ways of thinking.
Learning, forgetting, and relearning can help people pursue non-linear career paths and multiple career paths, but this requires not only new educational opportunities, but also employers willing to rethink and reinvent the way they select, attract, reward, and retain talent.
It's an incredibly daunting task, and creating a flexible ladder for advancement is a good place to start. When companies large and small start accepting online education qualifications for things like talent acquisition and promotion, a true post-generation workforce will be born.
Perhaps only large companies can take the lead in creating workplaces for the next generation.
Policy change
In the transition to an evergreen post-generation society, we need legal adjustments to address discrimination against young people and people aged 60 and over in areas such as employment, housing, health care and legal action.
In the Global Report on Ageism, the United Nations notes that discrimination against people at both ends of the age spectrum is particularly severe in both developed and developing countries.
To overcome ageism, we also need to adopt a new way of organizing our lives and strengthening interaction between generations.
For example, we can expand educational opportunities to change people's mindsets and provide them with more flexible career paths.
In addition, the government could consider reallocating resources, such as implementing quotas within companies.
Multi-generational consumption
Driven by multi-generational living, learning and working, multi-generational consumption is on the rise. Brands have begun to focus on appealing to different generations of consumers: by emphasizing the commonalities between different generations, and by capitalizing on new trends in multi-generational co-consumption and evergreen generation marketing.
Media and streaming platforms are building multiple generations of content.
Beauty brands are targeting the "19-99 year old" age group. Car companies have joined the trend, even popular companies such as Disney and Lego.
A more balanced and flexible evergreen generation
The best way to develop an evergreen society is as follows:
- Eliminate all forms of severe age discrimination, including restrictive policies related to education, employment, housing, and health care.
- Encourage innovation and competition in the education sector and engage people in lifelong learning, and learning together across generations.
- Reform the job performance appraisal and promotion system so that employees with children don't have to make complex trade-offs between family and work.
- Incentives and funding for individuals and companies have made it easier for people to switch between school and work, while encouraging organizations to continue to strengthen interaction and collaboration among future generations.
- In terms of work, training, retraining and career development, more companies and government agencies are persuaded to try to implement post-generation strategies. High-quality online education qualifications should also be accepted for recruitment and promotion. In this way, companies and government agencies that are the first to adopt policies will be at the vanguard of change and will become a model for other companies and organizations to follow.
We need to embrace the spirit of generations and allow multiple generations to live, learn, work and consume together.
The revolution of the next generation is already in the making, and more and more people have become the evergreen generation in the true sense of the word. What we need to do is to get rid of old ideas and ride the wave of change.