Ready for intergenerational dialogue?

This was me when I was little. I could not read yet, but it seems that I am reading the newspaper. I cannot find a more eloquent image to explain why I am dedicated to communication. It is in my blood.

Now I am 50 five years old, well almost 56 six. I have the hope that some of you, the people who read this article or watch the video on Youtube, think that I do not look my age. I'm afraid I look how old I am, I don't intend to deceive anyone and less to myself.

I like my age (despite my knees already hurt) because it allows me to look back and feel satisfied with what I have done. I have lived a good life and I want to continue living it. I owe this feeling to my parents, of course, to the education and example I received from them, to a persistent curiosity that has led me to not stop training, and to a positive attitude towards life. Training has been the lever that has allowed me to live better than my parents, a goal that should be a common thought of any generation.

However, I am not sure that my children will live better than me, even though they have more and better education than me. This could break one of the axes that drives the progress of society: intergenerational hope. This concern has led me to reflect on diversity and generations, a perspective that, in my opinion, will be increasingly present in the social debate as a consequence of the aging of the population.

I am going to give you some data to focus this thought:

- Between 1960 and 2019, life expectancy increased notably around the world. From the initial 50.7 years, it increased for men to 70.6 years. In the case of women, the average life expectancy has increased by 20.5 years since 1960, from 54.6 to 75.0 years.

- But it's not the same all over the world. The longest life expectancy is in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Japan (around 82 years for men and 87 for women). And the youngest in three African countries (Chad, Lessoto and the Central African Republic), with 51 and 55 years, respectively. We are talking about a gap of 30 years.

- In the year 2040 there will be more elderly than children in the world.

- 25% of the population of the countries of the European Union will be over 65 in 2050.

- In Italy there are already more households with pets than with children.

- Between 2010 and 2015 the world gained 77 million urbanites annually - more than the population of France. This has happened while cities continue to occupy only 0.5 % of the planet's surface. That is, we concentrate on less and less space.

- The twenty countries with the highest birth rates between 2015 and 2020 are located in Africa, the continent where young people have the least chance of progress.

- The projections show us that, by the year 2022, for every ten people in working age in Spain, there will be almost six inactive, either because they are under 16 years old or because they are over 65 years old. By the middle of the century, the dependency ratio will be practically 100 %, which implies that each person of working age will support an inactive person. Spain is an example of a developed country with a low birth rate.

- On average worldwide, 1.6 jobs are replaced for each new robot. The substitution effect does not have the same impact according to the country's productive fabric and is almost double in low-income economies than in high-income ones. If the average number of jobs supplanted by each new robot is 1.6, in developing countries it is 2.2 and in rich countries it is 1.3. In Europe, this transformation has already eliminated 400,000 jobs and by 2030 researchers estimate that there will be two million.

- The generation of babyboomers, which represents only 17% of the world's population, accumulates 38% of power, according to the parameters of the Generational Power Index report.

We can conclude that if we live longer, and those who live longer will suppose an economic burden for a system that, to a large extent, the younger ones bear, if we live more together due to urbanization, if many jobs will be automated while the workforce will tend to be more skilled and, above all, if young people do not grow up with the hope of living better than their parents and, consequently, of improving the world they inhabit, there is no doubt that there will be more tensions between generations.

The imbalance in demographic structures can lead to problems such as:

- Crisis in educational systems due to lack of public financial resources.

- Crisis in health systems due to the overload of chronic or age-related diseases.

- Worsening of job insecurity. Older people will tend to occupy the best jobs.

- Lack of intellectual dynamism in the population.

- Loss or weakening of collective memory. Always remember the most those who have the most memories.

- A more short-term vision of the world.

- Temptation of euthanasia to make room for young people.

- Violence between countries due to their different population structure. Take, for example, a very rich and very old Europe versus a very poor and very young sub-Saharan Africa.

If we look at it from the perspective of communication, it is easy to conclude that we need to promote intergenerational dialogue. The elderly (I include myself although I consider myself in an intermediate age) we have to listen more to young people; and young people have to talk more with their elders. The system – I mean, the institutions, the companies, our families - must provide spaces for conversation to prevent robots from finally making decisions that affect us all. Why do I say that robots will make decisions? Well, because algorithms will be increasingly present in our lives and the ethical framework in which they program such algorithms will not be innocuous.

Communication is a word that has Indo-European roots. It comes from the terms "ko" and "mein", which means "to make community". Communicating is, therefore, creating communities. And probably those of us who are over 50 years old and are dedicated to public relations and communication have a greater responsibility to create this dialogue precisely because we have a smaller stake in this game.

Let's rejuvenate our conversations.