essay on future generations

What do we owe future generations? And what can we do to make their world a better place?

Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Australian Catholic University

Disclosure statement

Michael Noetel receives funding from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and Sport Australia. He is a Director of Effective Altruism Australia.

Australian Catholic University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

Your great grandchildren are powerless in today’s society. As Oxford philosopher William MacAskill says:

They cannot vote or lobby or run for public office, so politicians have scant incentive to think about them. They can’t bargain or trade with us, so they have little representation in the market, And they can’t make their views heard directly: they can’t tweet, or write articles in newspapers, or march in the streets. They are utterly disenfranchised.

But the things we do now influence them: for better or worse. We make laws that govern them, build infrastructure for them and take out loans for them to pay back. So what happens when we consider future generations while we make decisions today?

Review: What We Owe the Future – William MacAskill (OneWorld)

This is the key question in What We Owe the Future . It argues for what MacAskill calls longtermism: “the idea that positively influencing the longterm future is a key moral priority of our time.” He describes it as an extension of civil rights and women’s suffrage; as humanity marches on, we strive to consider a wider circle of people when making decisions about how to structure our societies.

MacAskill makes a compelling case that we should consider how to ensure a good future not only for our children’s children, but also the children of their children. In short, MacAskill argues that “future people count, there could be a lot of them, and we can make their lives go better.”

Read more: Friday essay: 'I feel my heart breaking today' – a climate scientist's path through grief towards hope

Future people count

It’s hard to feel for future people. We are bad enough at feeling for our future selves. As The Simpsons puts it: “That’s a problem for future Homer. Man, I don’t envy that guy.”

We all know we should protect our health for our own future. In a similar vein, MacAskill argues that we all “know” future people count.

Concern for future generations is common sense across diverse intellectual traditions […] When we dispose of radioactive waste, we don’t say, “Who cares if this poisons people centuries from now?” Similarly, few of us who care about climate change or pollution do so solely for the sake of people alive today. We build museums and parks and bridges that we hope will last for generations; we invest in schools and longterm scientific projects; we preserve paintings, traditions, languages; we protect beautiful places.

There could be a lot of future people

Future people count, and MacAskill counts those people. The sheer number of future people might make their wellbeing a key moral priority. According to MacAskill and others, humanity’s future could be vast : much, much more than the 8 billion alive today.

While it’s hard to feel the gravitas, our actions may affect a dizzying number of people. Even if we last just 1 million years, as long as the average mammal – and even if the global population fell to 1 billion people – then there would be 9.1 trillion people in the future.

We might struggle to care, because these numbers can be hard to feel . Our emotions don’t track well against large numbers. If I said a nuclear war would kill 500 million people, you might see that as a “huge problem”. If I instead said that the number is actually closer to 5 billion , it still feels like a “huge problem”. It does not emotionally feel 10 times worse. If we risk the trillions of people who could live in the future, that could be 1,000 times worse – but it doesn’t feel 1,000 times worse.

MacAskill does not argue we should give those people 1,000 times more concern than people alive today. Likewise, MacAskill does not say we should morally weight a person living a million years from now exactly the same as someone alive 10 or 100 years from now. Those distinctions won’t change what we can feasibly achieve now, given how hard change can be.

Instead, he shows if we care about future people at all, even those 100 years hence, we should simply be doing more . Fortunately, there are concrete things humanity can do.

Read more: Labor's climate change bill is set to become law – but 3 important measures are missing

We can make the lives of future people better

Another reason we struggle to be motivated by big problems is that they feel insurmountable. This is a particular concern with future generations. Does anything I do make a difference, or is it a drop in the bucket? How do we know what to do when the long-run effects are so uncertain ?

Even present-day problems can feel hard to tackle. At least for those problems we can get fast, reliable feedback on progress. Even with that advantage, we struggle. For the second year in a row, we did not make progress toward our sustainable development goals, like reducing war, poverty, and increasing growth. Globally, 4.3% of children still die before the age of five. COVID-19 has killed about 23 million people . Can we – and should we – justify focusing on future generations when we face these problems now?

MacAskill argues we can. Because the number of people is so large, he also argues we should. He identifies some areas where we could do things that protect the future while also helping people who are alive now. Many solutions are win-win.

For example, the current pandemic has shown that unforeseen events can have a devastating effect. Yet, despite the recent pandemic, many governments have done little to set up more robust systems that could prevent the next pandemic. MacAskill outlines ways in which those future pandemics could be worse.

Most worrying are the threats from engineered pathogens, which

[…] could be much more destructive than natural pathogens because they can be modified to have dangerous new properties. Could someone design a pathogen with maximum destructive power—something with the lethality of Ebola and the contagiousness of measles?

He gives examples, like militaries and terrorist groups, that have tried to engineer pathogens in the past.

The risk of an engineered pandemic wiping us all out in the next 100 years is between 0.1% and 3%, according to estimates laid out in the book.

That might sound low, but MacAskill argues we would not step on a plane if you were told “it ‘only’ had a one-in-a-thousand chance of crashing and killing everyone on board”. These threaten not only future generations, but people reading this – and everyone they know.

MacAskill outlines ways in which we might be able to prevent engineered pandemics, like researching better personal protective equipment, cheaper and faster diagnostics, better infrastructure, or better governance of synthetic biology. Doing so would help save the lives of people alive today, reduce the risk of technological stagnation and protect humanity’s future.

The same win-wins might apply to decarbonisation , safe development of artificial intelligence , reducing risks from nuclear war , and other threats to humanity.

Read more: Even a 'limited' nuclear war would starve millions of people, new study reveals

Things you can do to protect future generations

Some “longtermist” issues, like climate change, are already firmly in the public consciousness. As a result, some may find MacAskill’s book “common sense”. Others may find the speculation about the far future pretty wild (like all possible views of the longterm future).

MacAskill strikes an accessible balance between anchoring the arguments to concrete examples, while making modest extrapolations into the future. He helps us see how “common sense” principles can lead to novel or neglected conclusions.

For example, if there is any moral weight on future people, then many common societal goals (like faster economic growth) are vastly less important than reducing risks of extinction (like nuclear non-proliferation). It makes humanity look like an “imprudent teenager”, with many years ahead, but more power than wisdom:

Even if you think [the risk of extinction] is only a one-in-a-thousand, the risk to humanity this century is still ten times higher than the risk of your dying this year in a car crash. If humanity is like a teenager, then she is one who speeds around blind corners, drunk, without wearing a seat belt.

Our biases toward present, local problems are strong, so connecting emotionally with the ideas can be hard. But MacAskill makes a compelling case for longtermism through clear stories and good metaphors. He answers many questions I had about safeguarding the future. Will the future be good or bad? Would it really matter if humanity ended? And, importantly, is there anything I can actually do?

The short answer is yes, there is. Things you might already do help, like minimising your carbon footprint – but MacAskill argues “other things you can do are radically more impactful”. For example, reducing your meat consumption would address climate change, but donating money to the world’s most effective climate charities might be far more effective.

Beyond donations, three other personal decisions seem particularly high impact to me: political activism, spreading good ideas, and having children […] But by far the most important decision you will make, in terms of your lifetime impact, is your choice of career.

MacAskill points to a range of resources – many of which he founded – that guide people in these areas. For those who might have flexibility in their career, MacAskill founded 80,000 Hours , which helps people find impactful, satisfying careers. For those trying to donate more impactfully, he founded Giving What We Can. And, for spreading good ideas, he started a social movement called Effective Altruism .

Longtermism is one of those good ideas. It helps us better place our present in humanity’s bigger story. It’s humbling and inspiring to see the role we can play in protecting the future. We can enjoy life now and safeguard the future for our great grandchildren. MasAskill clearly shows that we owe it to them.

• Climate change
• Generations
• Future generations
• Effective altruism
• Longtermism

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Technical Assistant - Metabolomics

Data Manager

Director, Social Policy

Head, School of Psychology

How Future Generations Will Remember Us

History is a long series of moral abominations.

The Romans enslaved people , enforced a rigid patriarchy, and delighted in the spectacle of prisoners being tortured at the Colosseum. Top minds of the ancient Western world—luminaries such as Aristotle, whose works are still taught in undergraduate lectures today—defended slavery as an entirely natural and proper practice. Indeed, from the dawn of the agricultural era to the 19th century, slavery was ubiquitous across the world. It’s hard to understand how our predecessors could have been so horrifically wrong.

We have made real progress since then. Though still very far from perfect, society is in many respects considerably more humane and just than it once was. But why should anyone think this journey of moral progress is close to complete? Given humanity’s track record, we almost certainly are, like our forebears, committing grave moral mistakes at this very moment. When future generations look back on us, they might see us like we see the Romans. Contemplating our potential moral wrongdoing is a challenging exercise: It requires us to perceive and scrutinize everything that humanity does.

Some of our sins are obvious with even a small amount of reflection. Take, for example, how we treat incarcerated people. Unlike the Romans, we mostly no longer stage the suffering of prisoners as public spectacle. Still, we subject them to conditions—such as extended solitary confinement —that enlightened future generations will likely regard with horror. The massive harm we inflict on incarcerated people (and their innocent families) is often greater than the harm inflicted by beating and caning—practices we’ve rightly left behind.

Or consider how we treat animals. Every year, humanity slaughters 80 billion land animals to satisfy our culinary preferences. Most of these are chickens, and their lives are miserable: Male chicks of layer hens are gassed, ground up, or thrown into the garbage, where they either die of thirst or suffocate to death; female chicks have their sensitive beaks cut off, and most are confined to cages that are smaller than a letter-size piece of paper. On average, a regular meal containing chicken or eggs costs at least 10 torturous hours of a chicken’s life—and more chickens will be killed within the next two years than the number of all humans who have ever lived . Similarly, pigs are castrated and have their tails amputated, and farmed cattle are castrated, dehorned, and branded with a hot iron—all without anesthetic. If animals matter at all, our treatment of them is a crime of epic proportions .

These ethical failures share a pattern. Disenfranchised and marginalized groups—such as the global poor, incarcerated people, migrants wrested from their families by our immigration system, and even humble farm animals—are out of sight and out of mind. Future generations will observe how we hid these groups from society’s gaze, allowing ourselves to ignore their basic interests. This is not a new point . But there’s another dimension that’s less discussed. When future people look back on us, they are bound to notice our disregard for another disenfranchised group: them .

Future generations can’t vote in our elections, or speak across time and urge us to act differently. They are voiceless. It’s easy to imagine that in the year 2300, our descendants will look back on us and deplore our failure to take their interests into account. And the stakes of this potential failure are incredibly high. Because of the sheer number of future people, and because their well-being is so utterly neglected, I’ve come to believe that protecting future generations should be a key moral priority of our time . When we consider which groups we’re neglecting, it’s all too easy to forget about most people who will likely ever live.

Here’s just one example of our disregard for future people. Despite the devastating wake-up call of COVID-19, most governments remain almost entirely underprepared for future pandemics. For instance, the U.S. still spends only less than $10 billion a year on preparing for pandemics, compared with about $280 billion on counterterrorism. Since 9/11, about 500 people have died on U.S. soil as a result of a terrorist acts. More than a thousand times as many have died from COVID: The excess-death toll from COVID in the U.S. is more than a million people. If we don’t massively ramp up our meager attempts to prevent the next pandemic, it’s highly likely that a pathogen much deadlier than the coronavirus will eventually cause devastation. The risk of accident from experimentation on the very deadliest pandemics will only increase, and soon, as such dangerous research becomes rapidly more accessible .

Read: America is sliding into the long pandemic defeat

If our descendants live in a postapocalyptic dystopia, how will they see our failure to prevent catastrophe? And what will our descendants think of our choice to spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Carbon dioxide will pollute the air they breathe for thousands of years ; sea level will continue to rise for 10,000 years. And when it comes to climate change and pandemic preparedness, there are concrete steps we can take today. We can invest in the most promising clean-energy technology, like batteries, solar panels, and enhanced geothermal power, to mitigate climate change. To avoid the next pandemic, we can develop next-generation personal protective equipment and early-warning systems that detect new pathogens in wastewater, and we can get the cost of far-UVC lighting down low enough so that we can easily and safely kill viruses in the air. If we don’t act now to safeguard the future, our descendants will predictably—and fittingly—judge us for our shortsightedness .

But climate change and pandemics aren’t the only catastrophes that deserve much more attention. How can we mend a breakdown in international relations and mitigate the risk of spiraling into World War III? Artificial intelligence is rapidly progressing—how can we prevent it from being weaponized by bad actors, and how can we ensure it stays aligned with humanity’s values? And how can we prevent authoritarian and illiberal ideologies from gaining currency, and ensure that moral progress continues long into the future?

These are difficult problems. But over the past decade or so, we’ve made real progress on them. Groups such as the Alignment Research Center are working to ensure that AI benefits humanity rather than destroys it. Forecasters at sites such as Metaculus are learning how to make careful, evidence-based predictions about the future, and how to score those predictions impartially. And organizations such as Alvea , the Nucleic Acid Observatory , and the SecureDNA Project are developing concrete solutions to protect people, now and in the future, from biological catastrophe.

But there is so much more to be done. Society still devotes an embarrassingly small portion of its time and resources to tackling the most important problems. We need more impact-driven research , forecasting tournaments , prediction markets , and truth-seeking public debate. We need a social movement committed to protecting the future, and public-advocacy campaigns for the interests of our descendants. We need creative experiments to represent future people—and other powerless populations—in our political institutions . We need to continue expanding the circle of moral concern so that it includes the global poor, incarcerated people, immigrants, animals, and all other beings that can flourish or suffer—now and far into the future .

We also need to recognize just how much we might be missing. The most important moral causes in previous centuries might be obvious to us now, but they were only dimly apparent at the time. We should expect the same to be true today. So we can’t address just the problems that strike us, today, as most obviously pressing. We must also cultivate our society’s wisdom, foresight, and powers of reflection—so that we, and our children, can make progress in discovering what the most important problems truly are. This process of moral reflection could take considerable time, but it’s one we can’t afford to skip.

To truly understand the most important problems we face, and to find the most effective solutions, is no small task, and we’ve barely gotten started. But with hard work and humility, we can steer toward a future that our grandchildren, and their grandchildren, will be glad to inherit.

What will future generations think of us? Perhaps they will see us as selfish and myopic. Or perhaps they will look back on us with gratitude, for the steps we took to leave them a better world. The choice is ours.

Young people hold the key to creating a better future

Image:  Fateme Alaie/Unsplash

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Klaus Schwab

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} Youth Perspectives is affecting economies, industries and global issues

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:, youth perspectives.

Listen to the article

• Young people are the most affected by the crises facing our world.
• They are also the ones with the most innovative ideas and energy to build a better society for tomorrow.
• Read the report "Davos Labs: Youth Recovery Plan" here .

Have you read?

Youth recovery plan.

Young people today are coming to age in a world beset by crises. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic devastated lives and livelihoods around the world, the socio-economic systems of the past had put the liveability of the planet at risk and eroded the pathway to healthy, happy, fulfilled lives for too many.

The same prosperity that enabled global progress and democracy after the Second World War is now creating the inequality, social discord and climate change we see today — along with a widening generational wealth gap and youth debt burden, too. For Millennials, the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession resulted in significant unemployment, huge student debt and a lack of meaningful jobs. Now, for Generation Z, COVID-19 has caused school shutdowns, worsening unemployment, and mass protests.

Young people are right to be deeply concerned and angry, seeing these challenges as a betrayal of their future.

But we can’t let these converging crises stifle us. We must remain optimistic – and we must act.

The next generation are the most important and most affected stakeholders when talking about our global future – and we owe them more than this. The year 2021 is the time to start thinking and acting long-term to make intergenerational parity the norm and to design a society, economy and international community that cares for all people.

Young people are also the best placed to lead this transformation. In the past 10 years of working with the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community, a network of people between the ages of 20 and 30 working to address problems in more than 450 cities around the world, I’ve seen first-hand that they are the ones with the most innovative ideas and energy to build a better society for tomorrow.

Over the past year, Global Shapers organized dialogues on the most pressing issues facing society, government and business in 146 cities, reaching an audience of more than 2 million. The result of this global, multistakeholder effort, “ Davos Labs: Youth Recovery Plan ,” presents both a stark reminder of our urgent need to act and compelling insights for creating a more resilient, sustainable, inclusive world.

One of the unifying themes of the discussions was the lack of trust young people have for existing political, economic and social systems. They are fed up with ongoing concerns of corruption and stale political leadership, as well as the constant threat to physical safety caused by surveillance and militarized policing against activists and people of colour. In fact, more young people hold faith in governance by system of artificial intelligence than by a fellow human being.

Facing a fragile labour market and almost bankrupt social security system, almost half of those surveyed said they felt they had inadequate skills for the current and future workforce, and almost a quarter said they would risk falling into debt if faced with an unexpected medical expense. The fact that half of the global population remains without internet access presents additional hurdles. Waves of lockdowns and the stresses of finding work or returning to workplaces have exacerbated the existential and often silent mental health crisis.

So, what would Millennials and Generation Z do differently?

Most immediately, they are calling for the international community to safeguard vaccine equity to respond to COVID-19 and prevent future health crises.

Young people are rallying behind a global wealth tax to help finance more resilient safety nets and to manage the alarming surge in wealth inequality. They are calling to direct greater investments to programmes that help young progressive voices join government and become policymakers.

I am inspired by the countless examples of young people pursuing collective action by bringing together diverse voices to care for their communities.

To limit global warming, young people are demanding a halt to coal, oil and gas exploration, development, and financing, as well as asking firms to replace any corporate board directors who are unwilling to transition to cleaner energy sources.

They are championing an open internet and a $2 trillion digital access plan to bring the world online and prevent internet shutdowns, and they are presenting new ways to minimize the spread of misinformation and combat dangerous extremist views. At the same time, they’re speaking up about mental health and calling for investment to prevent and tackle the stigma associated with it.

The Global Shapers Community is a network of young people under the age of 30 who are working together to drive dialogue, action and change to address local, regional and global challenges.

The community spans more than 8,000 young people in 165 countries and territories.

Teams of Shapers form hubs in cities where they self-organize to create projects that address the needs of their community. The focus of the projects are wide-ranging, from responding to disasters and combating poverty, to fighting climate change and building inclusive communities.

Examples of projects include Water for Life, a effort by the Cartagena Hub that provides families with water filters that remove biological toxins from the water supply and combat preventable diseases in the region, and Creativity Lab from the Yerevan Hub, which features activities for children ages 7 to 9 to boost creative thinking.

Each Shaper also commits personally and professionally to take action to preserve our planet.

Join or support a hub near you .

Transparency, accountability, trust and a focus on stakeholder capitalism will be key to meeting this generation’s ambitions and expectations. We must also entrust in them the power to take the lead to create meaningful change.

I am inspired by the countless examples of young people pursuing collective action by bringing together diverse voices to care for their communities. From providing humanitarian assistance to refugees to helping those most affected by the pandemic to driving local climate action, their examples provide the blueprints we need to build the more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable society and economy we need in the post-COVID-19 world.

We are living together in a global village, and it’s only by interactive dialogue, understanding each another and having respect for one another that we can create the necessary climate for a peaceful and sustainable world.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Related topics:

The agenda .chakra .wef-n7bacu{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-weight:400;} weekly.

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

.chakra .wef-1dtnjt5{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;} More on Youth Perspectives .chakra .wef-nr1rr4{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;white-space:normal;vertical-align:middle;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:0.75rem;border-radius:0.25rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;line-height:1.2;-webkit-letter-spacing:1.25px;-moz-letter-spacing:1.25px;-ms-letter-spacing:1.25px;letter-spacing:1.25px;background:none;padding:0px;color:#B3B3B3;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;}@media screen and (min-width:37.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:0.875rem;}}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:1rem;}} See all

This computer game makes students better at spotting fake news

Young people are becoming unhappier, a new report finds

A generation adrift: Why young people are less happy and what we can do about it

Andrew Moose and Ruma Bhargava

April 5, 2024

Lessons in leadership and adventure from Kat Bruce

How countries can save millions by prioritising young people's sexual and reproductive health

Tomoko Fukuda and Andreas Daugaard Jørgensen

March 4, 2024

This is how to help young people navigate the opportunities and risks of AI and digital technology

Simon Torkington

January 31, 2024

• Future Perfect

What we owe to future generations

They’ll face extreme risks like climate change, pandemics, and artificial intelligence. We can help them survive.

by Sigal Samuel

In 2015, 20 residents of Yahaba, a small town in northeastern Japan, went to their town hall to take part in a unique experiment.

Their goal was to design policies that would shape the future of Yahaba. They would debate questions typically reserved for politicians: Would it be better to invest in infrastructure or child care? Should we promote renewable energy or industrial farming?

But there was a twist. While half the citizens were invited to be themselves and express their own opinions, the remaining participants were asked to put on special ceremonial robes and play the part of people from the future. Specifically, they were told to imagine they were from the year 2060, meaning they’d be representing the interests of a future generation during group deliberations.

What unfolded was striking. The citizens who were just being themselves advocated for policies that would boost their lifestyle in the short term. But the people in robes advocated for much more radical policies — from massive health care investments to climate change action — that would be better for the town in the long term. They managed to convince their fellow citizens that taking that approach would benefit their grandkids. In the end, the entire group reached a consensus that they should, in some ways, act against their own immediate self-interest in order to help the future.

This experiment marked the beginning of Japan’s Future Design movement. What started in Yahaba has since been replicated in city halls around the country, feeding directly into real policymaking. It’s one example of a burgeoning global attempt to answer big moral questions: Do we owe it to future generations to take their interests into account? What does it look like to incorporate the preferences of people who don’t even exist yet? How can we be good ancestors?

Several Indigenous communities have long embraced the principle of “seventh-generation decision making,” which involves weighing how choices made today will affect a person born seven generations from now. In fact, it’s that kind of thinking that inspired Japanese economics professor Tatsuyoshi Saijo to create the Future Design movement (he learned about the concept while visiting the US and found it extraordinary).

But most of us probably haven’t given much thought to how we can become good ancestors. As a quote attributed to Groucho Marx puts it: “Why should I care about future generations — what have they ever done for me?”

It’s also just genuinely hard to focus on the future when we’re struggling under the weight of our day-to-day problems, and when everything in society — from our political structures (think two- and four-year election cycles) to our consumerist technologies (think Amazon’s “Buy Now” button) — seems to favor short-term solutions.

And yet, failing to think long term is a huge problem. Threats like climate change, pandemics, and rapidly emerging technologies are making it clear that it’s not enough to adopt “sustainability” as a buzzword. If we really want human life to be sustainable, we need to break out of our fixation on the present. Training ourselves to take the long view is arguably the best thing we can do for humanity.

Why we should care about people who don’t exist yet

Picture this: A child is drowning in front of you. You see her desperate limbs flailing in a pond, and you know you could easily wade into the waters and save her. Your clothes would get muddy, but your life wouldn’t be in any danger. Should you rescue her?

Of course you should.

Now, what if I told you that the child was on the other side of the world, in a village in Nepal. She’s drowning in a pond there right now. An adult just like you is passing by the pond and sees her flailing. Is it just as important for that adult to save her as it is for you to save the child near you?

Hilary Greaves, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, thinks you should answer yes. “I’d hope that most reasonable people would agree that pain and suffering on the other side of the world matter just as much as pain and suffering here,” she said. In other words, spatial distance is morally irrelevant.

“And if you think that, then it’s pretty hard to see why the case of temporal distance would be any different,” Greaves continued. “If there’s a child suffering terribly in 300 years’ time, and this is completely predictable — and there’s just as much that you could do about it as there is that you could do about the suffering of a child today — it’d be pretty strange to think that just because it’s in the future it’s less important.”

This hypothetical — an adaptation of a classic Peter Singer thought experiment — highlights the idea that future lives matter, and that we should care about improving them just like we care about improving those of people alive today.

Roman Krznaric, a research fellow at the Long Now Foundation and the author of the new book The Good Ancestor , offers an even starker analogy. “If it’s wrong to plant a bomb on a train that kills a bunch of children right now, it’s also wrong to do it if it’s going to go off in 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 years,” he told me. “I think we shouldn’t be afraid of making that moral argument.”

And, increasingly, people are making that moral argument. “Legal struggles for the rights of future people are exploding around the world,” Krznaric said.

In 2015, 21 young Americans filed a landmark case against the government —  Juliana v. United States — in which they argued that its failure to confront climate change will have serious effects on both them and future generations, which constitutes a violation of their rights.

In 2019, 15 children and teens in Canada filed a similar lawsuit . That same year, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands issued a groundbreaking ruling ordering the government to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, citing its duty of care to current and future generations.

This past April, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court likewise ruled that the government’s current climate measures weren’t good enough to protect future generations, giving it until the end of 2022 to improve its carbon emissions targets.

Also in April, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled against the expansion of the cement industry , which is terrible for the climate, in certain areas of Punjab. In the decision, the presiding justice wrote: “The tragedy is that tomorrow’s generations aren’t here to challenge this pillaging of their inheritance. The great silent majority of future generations is rendered powerless and needs a voice. This Court should be mindful that its decisions also adjudicate upon the rights of the future generations of this country.”

Krznaric, who was surprised and delighted to find his book cited in the court proceedings, told me, “These lawyers and judges are trying to find a language to talk about something they know is right, and it’s about intergenerational justice. Law is generally slow, but stuff is happening fast.”

• Want to improve climate policy in the Biden era? Here’s where to donate.

How to nudge society to care more about the long term

The push to embrace this kind of thinking isn’t limited to the courts. A few countries have already created government agencies dedicated to thinking about policy in the very long term. Sweden has a “ Ministry of the Future ,” and Wales  and the  United Arab Emirates  both have something similar.

Prominent figures in other countries are pushing their governments in that direction. For example, philosopher Toby Ord , a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, published a report in June urging the UK to appoint a chief risk officer who would be responsible for sussing out and preparing for extreme risks.

“By my estimate, the likelihood of the world experiencing an existential catastrophe over the next 100 years is one in six — Russian roulette,” Ord said . “We cannot survive many centuries operating at a level of extreme risk like this.”

Ord emphasizes that humanity is highly vulnerable to dangers in two realms: biosecurity and artificial intelligence. Powerful actors could develop bioweapons , and individuals could misuse advances in synthetic biology to create man-made pandemics that are much worse than those that occur naturally. AI could outstrip human-level intelligence in the coming decades and, if not aligned with our values and goals, could wreak havoc on human life. These are potential existential risks to humanity, and we need to devote a lot more time and money to mitigating them.

On both sides of the Atlantic, intellectuals in recent years have formed organizations dedicated to cultivating long-term thinking. While the UK has groups like the Centre for Long-Term Resilience , Ari Wallach has been working on Longpath in the US. Operating under the motto “Be Great Ancestors,” Longpath gathers together CEOs, academics, and other individuals to do exercises meant to counter short-term thinking, from practicing mindfulness to writing letters to their future selves .

There’s a story in the Talmud that Wallach likes to tell participants: “One day, a man named Honi was walking along and saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked him, ‘How many years will it take until it will bear fruit?’ He said, ‘Not for 70 years.’ Honi said, ‘Do you really believe you’ll live another 70 years?’ The man answered, ‘I found this world provided with carob trees, and as my ancestors planted them for me, so I too plant them for my descendants.’”

What the man expresses in the story is gratitude toward his ancestors, and it’s that emotion that propels him to look out for his future descendants. The story captures a truth about human psychology that has since been validated in scientific studies : Eliciting gratitude in people is an effective behavioral nudge for getting them to act in the best interests of future generations.

“When people evoke feelings of gratitude (through prayer, counting blessings, etc.), the result on decisions is one of patience and value for the future relative to the present. We find they become more generous and even extract fewer resources from common resource pools,” David DeSteno, a psychology professor at Northeastern University, told me. “If gratitude makes you willing to extract fewer resources in the present (e.g., fish), they (e.g., fish stocks) can replenish or remain for future generations. Of course, this reduces immediate profit.”

DeSteno’s words highlight a fundamental tension: If we really care about creating a sustainable future for humanity, we may need to be willing to sacrifice some short-term gains.

• Is it okay to sacrifice one person to save many? How you answer depends on where you’re from.

But Wallach doesn’t think we need to frame this as a tough trade-off at all. He doesn’t ask people to sacrifice the concrete pleasures of today for the abstract rewards of tomorrow. Instead, he’s found it more effective to highlight how acting altruistically toward future generations can actually bring us pleasure now.

“When we ask people if they want to be the great ancestor that the future needs them to be, as part of what gives them meaning and purpose, they are no longer under the spell of lifespan bias,” he told me. “They see themselves as part of something larger. They are no longer being asked to sacrifice for the future, but to enhance their own sense of meaning and purpose in their present.”

Is caring for the future more important than caring for the present?

If you’ve gotten this far and you’re convinced that you should look out for future generations, you’re already ahead of lots of people. But it might interest you to know that some philosophers think longtermism — the idea that we should be concerned with ensuring that the future goes well — doesn’t actually go far enough.

Both Greaves and another Oxford philosopher, Will MacAskill, advocate for strong longtermism , which says that impacts on the far future aren’t just an important feature of our actions — they’re the most important feature. And when they say far future, they really mean far : They argue we should be thinking about the consequences of our actions not just one or five or seven generations from now, but thousands or even millions of years ahead.

Their reasoning goes like this: There are going to be far more people alive in the future than there are in the present or have been in the past. Of all the human beings who will ever be alive in the universe, the vast majority will live in the future.

If our species lasts for as long as Earth remains a habitable planet, we’re talking about at least 1 quadrillion people coming into existence — 100,000 times the population of Earth today. (Even if you think there’s only a 1 percent chance that our species lasts for as long as Earth is habitable, the math still means the number of future people outstrips the number of present people.) And if humans settle in space one day, we could be looking at an even longer, more populous future for our species.

Now, if you believe that all humans count equally regardless of where or when they live (remember the drowning-child-in-Nepal thought experiment?), you have to think about the impacts of our actions on all their lives. Since there are far more people to affect in the future — because most people who’ll ever exist will exist in the future — it follows that the impacts that matter most are those that affect future humans.

That’s how the argument goes, anyhow. And if you buy it, it might dramatically change some of your choices in life. Instead of donating to soup kitchens or charities that save kids from malaria today, you may donate to researchers who are figuring out how to ensure that tomorrow’s AI will be aligned with human values. Instead of devoting your career to being a family doctor, you may devote it to research on pandemic prevention. You’d know there’s only a tiny probability your donation or actions will help humanity avoid catastrophe, but you’d reason that it’s worth it — if your bet does pay off, the payoff would be enormous.

But you might not buy this argument at all. You might object that you can’t reliably predict the effects of your actions in one year, never mind 1,000 years, so it doesn’t make sense to invest a lot of resources in trying to positively impact the future when the effects of your actions might wash out in a few years or decades.

That’s a very reasonable objection. Greaves acknowledges that in a lot of cases, we suffer from “moral cluelessness” about the downstream effects of our actions. “But,” she told me, “that’s not the case for all actions.”

She recommends targeting issues that come with “lock-in” opportunities, or ways of doing good that result in the positive benefits being locked in for a long time. For example, you could pursue a career aimed at establishing national or international norms around carbon emissions, or nuclear bombs, or regulations for labs that deal with dangerous pathogens. These actions are almost certain to do good — the kind of good that won’t be undone quickly.

“It’s in the nature of a lock-in mechanism that the effects of your actions persist for an extremely long time,” Greaves said. “So it gets rid of your concern that the effects will keep getting dampened and dampened as you get further into the future.”

You might object to strong longtermism on different grounds, though. You might think, perhaps not unfairly, that it smacks of privilege — that it’s easy to take such a position when you live in relative prosperity, but that people living in miserable conditions today need our help now, and we have a duty to ease their suffering.

In fact, you might reject the premise that all humans count equally regardless of when they live. Maybe you think we have an especially strong duty to humans who are alive in the present because aggregated effects on people’s welfare aren’t the only things that matter — things like justice matter too. We might owe it to disadvantaged groups today to help them out, possibly as reparations for harm done in the past through colonialism or slavery.

When I voiced this objection to Greaves, she admitted it’s plausible that thinking, utilitarian-style, only about what would be the better outcome doesn’t exhaust the moral story — that maybe we should take virtues such as justice into account. But she said it’s still a mistake to think that that obviously sways the balance in favor of present people. If justice is in the picture, she rebutted, why shouldn’t justice also apply to future people?

“Take the case of reparations. If you think that there are some people we owe reparations to because of wrongs done in the past that are affecting their interests now, and in some of those cases you’re talking about wrongs that were done hundreds of years ago, that quite nicely makes the point that bad things we do now can — via the route of justice — have adverse impacts in a couple hundred years’ time,” Greaves said. “So you might think it’s a matter of justice that we owe it to future generations to bequeath them both an existence in the first place and the conditions for their flourishing.”

It’s worth noting that Greaves does not find it easy to live her philosophy. She told me she feels awful whenever she walks past a homeless person. She’s acutely aware she’s not supporting that individual or the larger cause of ending homelessness because she’s supporting longtermist causes instead.

“I feel really bad, but it’s a limited sense of feeling bad because I do think it’s the right thing to do given that the counterfactual is giving to these other [longtermist] causes that are more effective,” she said. “The morally appropriate thing is to occupy this kind of middle space where you’re still gripped by present-day suffering but you recognize there’s an even more important thing you can do with the limited resources.”

Not everyone will agree with this reasoning, and that’s perfectly okay. You can agree with longtermism without agreeing with strong longtermism.

You can also decide that strong longtermism is pretty intellectually convincing, but you’re not confident enough in its claims that you want to devote 100 percent of your charitable donations or your time to exclusively longtermist causes. In that case, you can split your money (or time) into different buckets: You might decide that 50 percent of your donations go to longtermist issues and 50 percent go to causes like poverty, homelessness, or racial justice.

If you feel safer hedging your bets this way, you’re not alone. Even Greaves admits that it’s scary to commit fully to her philosophy. “It’s like you’re standing on a pin over a chasm,” she told me. “It feels dangerous, in a way, to throw all this altruistic effort at existential risk mitigation and probably do nothing, when you know that you could’ve done all this good for near-term causes.”

• How your brain invents morality

A few things about the future we can all probably agree on

If you care about helping both present and future generations, you might want to think about things that check both boxes. This is the strategy Krznaric recommends. “Let’s find the sweet spot between our self-interest today and the future that even Groucho Marx might be happy with,” he said.

While Krznaric isn’t confident in our ability to predict the knock-on effects of technological shifts, he thinks it’s easier to say for sure that certain ecological shifts would be good. For example, if we donate to groups that make a positive difference in staving off climate change and preventing pandemics, that’s really good for us today and in the near future — and highly likely to be positive for the long-run future too.

“What do we know about human life, whether it’s today or in 200 years or 300 years?” he said. “We know that if there are any creatures like us, they’ll need air to breathe and water to drink. If you want to think long term, one of the best ways to do it is, don’t think about time, think about place.”

He cited biologists such as Janine Benyus , who explains how some creatures have managed to survive for 10,000 generations and beyond: by taking care of the place that will take care of their offspring. They live within the boundaries of the ecosystem in which they’re embedded. They don’t foul the nest.

This focus on safeguarding place for both the present and the future could end up being an important line of research within longtermism. One advantage of this approach is that it’s not excessively morally demanding, whereas it’s maybe too demanding to say that we ought to devote most of our resources to improving the far future even when it comes at a serious cost to current interests.

Mind you, Greaves and MacAskill make a good point when they write that “even if, for example, there is an absolute cap on the total sacrifice that can be morally required, it seems implausible that society today is currently anywhere near that cap.”

Ultimately, the world doesn’t need everyone to focus all of their resources on the far future all the time — but we’re a long way from a situation where even a fraction of us are focusing even a fraction of our resources on it. Because long-term thinking is so neglected, it would probably do a lot of good if more of us were to direct more attention to making human life sustainable.

And if we think human life in the future might be full of awesome things like happiness and knowledge and beauty — or even if we think there’s just a decent chance it could be more good than bad — then thinking about how to increase the odds of such a future for later generations is really worth our time.

In fact, our lives may start to feel much more meaningful if we regularly pause to ask ourselves: How can I shape the larger story of humanity into something fruitful? What carob trees am I planting?

Further reading:

• Nick Beckstead’s 2013 philosophy dissertation , “On the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future,” set the groundwork for more recent philosophical work on longtermism.
• Hilary Greaves and Will MacAskill’s original working paper , “The Case for Strong Longtermism,” frames the case in very strong terms: “For the purposes of evaluating actions, we can in the first instance often simply ignore all the effects contained in the first 100 (or even 1000) years, focussing primarily on the further-future effects. Short-run effects act as little more than tie-breakers.” The revised version , dated June 2021, leaves this passage out.
• Hilary Greaves explains “moral cluelessness” on the 80,000 Hours podcast.
• Toby Ord argues the long-term future matters more than anything else, also on the 80,000 Hours podcast.
• Roman Krznaric has a running list on his website of organizations promoting long-term thinking, as well as an interesting Intergenerational Solidarity Index , a measure of how much different nations provide for the well-being of future generations.

Most Popular

What to know about claudia sheinbaum, mexico’s likely next president, the best — and worst — criticisms of trump’s conviction, take a mental break with the newest vox crossword, billie eilish vs. taylor swift: is the feud real who’s dissing who, what trump really thinks about the war in gaza, today, explained.

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.

More in Future Perfect

This article is OpenAI training data

Big Milk has taken over American schools

The bizarre link between rising sea levels and complications in pregnancy

Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis 

Heat waves increase the number of risky, premature births

Why pregnancy triples your chances of getting severe malaria

Why some wild animals are getting insomnia

What ever happened to the war on terror?

• Environment
• Obligations

We talk about owing future generations a better world. We might also think that we should do things for future generations even if our actions might not benefit present-day people. But is it possible to have obligations to people who are not yet born? Can people who do not exist be said to have rights that we should respect? And if they do, what do we do if our rights and theirs conflict? Josh and Ken are obliged to welcome Rahul Kumar from Queen's University, editor of  Ethics and Future Generations.

Josh Landy   How much should we care about future generations?

Ken Taylor   Shouldn't we care as much about them as we do for ourselves?

Josh Landy   Why don't just live it up and let the people of the future sortit out?

Get Philosophy Talk

Sunday at 11am (Pacific) on  KALW 91.7 FM , San Francisco, and rebroadcast on many other stations nationwide

Full episode downloads via Apple Music and abbreviated episodes (Philosophy Talk Starters) via Apple Podcasts , Spotify , and Stitcher

Unlimited Listening

Buy the episode, related blogs, what do we owe future generations.

Exactly how much should we care about future generations? It seems obviously wrong to say that we shouldn’t care about them at all. It also seems wrong to say that we should care about them as much as we do about ourselves. After all, they don’t even exist—at least not yet.

Bonus Content

Research by, comments (11).

Friday, November 23, 2018 -- 1:02 PM

Upon completing an essay on enlightenment philosophy, I looked at the PT blog and found this post. An ending portion of my essay is given below. It may give some clue, as to what debt we have to those who are not yet in control of that of which we are not yet in control:

I think we have to wonder---more now than did our enlightened ancestors. If the famous 2nd law of thermodynamics holds for closed systems, what means that for us? Sure, it holds in matters of physics, but all things, animate or no, are vulnerable to obligatory constraints and land mines. Might it not be that entropy is stalking us while we carelessly look the other way? You cannot hope to ask the right questions if you have already arrived at the wrong answers.

Cordially, Neuman

Log in or register to post comments

Sunday, February 10, 2019 -- 11:31 AM

Speaking of Utilitarianism, I'd love to hear what the commentators think of the Utility Monster thought experiment -- which I believe is another nail in the coffin for Utilitarianism. I see examples of it in society today. But I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Sunday, August 15, 2021 -- 8:37 PM

Strictly the Utility Monster (UM) isn't a part of this OP or show, but Utilitarianism will never die, so here is a short take on Nozick's UM.

This thread jack is worth its own show/blog. PT has done a recent show on Rawls, but it didn't get into the UM that much, which is the thought experiment of Rawl's greatest critic Robert Nozick. Thought experiments are themselves worthy of a separate show and span literature, and science, as well as philosophy. Ursula Le Guin's short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and Derek Parfit's Mere Addition Paradoxare both towering rebuttals/commentaries to Nozick's UM.

We need to be mindful of our criteria for happiness. It can be widely different. The beads given for Manhattan Island and terms weren't understood (by either party.) Old or disabled humans can not generate happiness as readily as young and fully-abled persons. If we generalize happiness and measure it in the proximate present time, Utilitarianism makes some sense. The present moment is the criterion I would examine the UM. Once we look to the future, and even if we look to the past, things become less clear. Who is a monster, and what utility is gained?

For the most part, the diminishing marginal utility as anyone gains resources makes their relative return on pleasure lesser. Houseless people are UM s relative to the housed but lose their monster hood quickly once off the streets. CoVid vaccinations were arguably and inversely given to the UM s of our world, yet the vaccine-hesitant don't even realize the horror of their own making.

I'm not sure of what examples you were thinking. Each scenario brings out its own set of qualifications. Super Intelligent machines, Google, Obamacare, and homelessness are some UM-worthy examples I can think of, but each leads down its own threadjacking details. In general, the UM is unhelpful. Utilitarianism is much too large a beast to be slain by any monster. The future generation argument Rahul enters put easily removed nails in Utilitarian arguments. The climate situation is way too far gone, the resources of Africa are too scarce, and for the most part, the diminishing marginal utility as anyone gains resources makes their relative return on pleasure lesser. Most importantly, the political will is too vulnerable to assume growth and world order in the near future.

Friday, August 13, 2021 -- 4:57 AM

Am drafting a longview commentary on this question. Will share pieces of that, as it develops, explaining why I think any answer is ultimately out-of-time.

Friday, August 13, 2021 -- 6:27 AM

Experience teaches us that we are not so concerned about the long view on actions. The Covid crisis is a good example. Posing an existential threat to our kind, it received pretty swift attention and vaccine development unparalled.. What we may or may not owe future generations is much less an issue than whether there will be future generations...

Wednesday, August 18, 2021 -- 8:31 AM

Long views are not very sexy. The matter of global warming is finally gaining some traction, but mostly among the scientific realm. It is not goog for commerce, progress or any form of government based on profit. In other words, all of them. And so, those who remain among the doubtful have vested interests that are at risk, should science and it's supporters be believed. It does not seem likely that anyone can have it both ways...we don't yet have all the wrinkles ironed out so as to move somewhere else. Millionaires are making strides with their innovative (space-worthy?) vehicles. But, if science is right, time for ironing is short. An average person can see the dilemma. I think. Mine is a layman point of view, best I can offer, based on what I have and know.

Monday, August 23, 2021 -- 3:58 PM

Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is difficult while amid clear and present dangers like climate change or Covid19. There may be no clear path to recovery or a future generation that resembles anything like our current or recent past.

Philoso?hy Talk did a show similar to this one in 2005, which is helpful to me in thinking about these times - https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/intergenerational-obligations . Though that was 16 years ago, the show's core is as relevant today as back then, even if the sense of dread wasn't as prevalent. That show led off with a line from Groucho Marx "Why should I care about future generations – what have they ever done for me?" Ken finished that show with his answer – Future generations give our lives meaning.

I remember years ago holding my first and only child thinking about this. I didn't post to PT back then, blogging/posting didn't seem like a thing, and being a Dad was all I could manage. Honestly, global warming didn't seem like the thing it is now. It is a dark tunnel.

I appreciate this new show all the more in light of the previous one. Philosophy helps me think about my worries and concerns. Like most other callers and bloggers here, I share their pessimism and ennui. But I am bolstered by their shared thought and attention. They are my leaders and companions in passing down the lessons, debts, and possible solutions to the generations to come.

Sunday, August 29, 2021 -- 2:04 PM

Read with interest your remarks, Tim. I offer for any who are interested, one more installment on the long-view thesis: The long-view is a development, unique to human consciousness., whatever we believe that to be. Our abilities to reason; infer; intuit; assess and analyze are what give us this capability. Natural selection has some small bend in this direction, but does not plan, based upon experience.(s). So, we have an 'upper hand', not available to primary consciousness-endowed creatures. Even with this benefit, we still fail to read the signs. The rampant resurgence of covid is signal. We were advised of this probability, told to use PPE, advised to get vaccinated and all the rest. Vaccination efforts fell short of what were attainable. Politics won out over science and a long-view. The tail wagged the dog. And we are in a continuing world of hurt because of it. Call this simplistic if you like. We had algorithms (ska, tools). They were not taken seriously after covid fatigue took hold. Now. Is there an ethic associated with tools? It depends on where you sit, whether that ethic stands as valid.

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 -- 11:01 PM

It is necessary to contemplate, with more emphasis in the present era compared to our predecessors who were enlightened. If the well-known second rule of thermodynamics is applicable to closed systems, what implications does it have for us? Indeed, although this principle is applicable within the realm of geometry dash subzero physics, it is important to acknowledge that all entities, whether living or inanimate, are susceptible to mandatory limitations and potential hazards.

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 -- 11:37 PM

The present generations should ensure the conditions of equitable, sustainable and universal socio-economic development of future generations, both in its individual and collective Car Games dimensions, in particular through a fair and prudent use of available resources for the purpose of combating poverty.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 -- 12:28 AM

There appears to be a difficulty with the connection to me. Could you please check that this console is properly connected to the adjacent one? If everything appears to be in order, you can reach out to support. If your control panel flickers, it may be time to replace it. run 3

• Create new account
• Request new password

Upcoming Shows

Summer Reading List 2024

Righteous Rage

What Is Gender?

Listen to the preview.

• LSE Authors
• Subscribe to our newsletter

Stylianos Syropoulos

Ezra markowitz, august 23rd, 2021, taking responsibility for future generations promotes personal action on climate change.

1 comment | 31 shares

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Climate change is already here, but we know that its worst impacts are waiting in the wings for future generations. Unless we step up to the challenge, as individuals and as a species. Stylianos Syropoulos and Ezra Markowitz discuss how emphasising personal and collective responsibility towards future generations can not only promote climate change concern, but also potentially increase support for the hard work ahead.

As we progress through the 21st century, the true contours and effects of climate change are coming into sharper focus. Seemingly on a daily basis we are bearing witness to one climate-related disaster after another, compounding human suffering and misery now and for years to come.

But we know, too, that what we have witnessed thus far is only a prelude to what lies ahead in the face of continued inaction and foot-dragging. More frequent and more damaging impacts are highly likely in the decades to come. To put it a different way, future generations desperately need us to do something now in order to give them a chance when it’s their turn.

Luckily, there is something we can do now. In fact, there are many different things that we—people alive today—can do to avoid or at least deflect the worst impacts of climate change on future generations. And not only can we do something: we have a responsibility to do so , to take concrete steps to ensure that this bleak future is prevented. The question is, how do we encourage people to take this responsibility seriously, or to even recognise it in the first place?

A growing body of research in the behavioural and social sciences can provide actionable insights. Over the past two decades, researchers have explored a wide variety of approaches to increasing people’s recognition and acceptance of climate change as an issue of personal and collective responsibility and action. To name just a few, these include leveraging people’s motivation to leave a positive legacy , encouraging them to reflect on the sacrifices made by previous generations on their behalf, and emphasising self-transcendent and altruistic values in environmental messaging campaigns.

But do perceptions of responsibility towards the future really matter? After all, we all know there are things we should do in our lives—eat better, exercise more, be more generous—but choose not to. In fact, our recent analysis of nationally-representative U.S. survey data , published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology , found that people who feel a personal responsibility to protect future generations are significantly more likely to worry about climate change, support pro-environmental policies, and believe that climate change represents a critical threat to humanity.

In our analyses we found that this perception of responsibility was, for the most part, unrelated to news consumption, gender and racial identities, and income level. Perhaps more surprisingly, perceived responsibility was also not meaningfully related to political ideology, one of the strongest drivers of climate change public opinion in the US. As a result, our findings strongly suggest that perceptions of responsibility towards future generations are a robust mechanism that can be harnessed to promote pro-environmental action and policy support, regardless of individual and group differences previously shown to sow discord in the context of climate change.

Importantly, the effects of responsibility towards future generations could be linked to support for specific policy proposals and collective actions, including opposition to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, opposition to the use of fracking as a drilling method, and support for enforcing stricter limits on the amount of carbon dioxide produced by societies. Increased perceptions of responsibility also predicted increased support for funding renewable energy initiatives.

In addition, people who felt a strong responsibility to protect future generations also considered the protection of the environment as an important personal value. These people were also more likely to experience awe towards nature (a feeling of wonder over nature’s beauty), another previously identified predictor of pro-environmental engagement. Importantly, those who expressed increased perceived responsibility towards future others were also more likely to see climate change and global warming as a threat and an issue that demands more of our attention, and more likely to accept the science of climate change.

These findings are promising, as they suggest at least three key takeaways:

1) People who consider themselves responsible for protecting future generations also express endorsement of values and beliefs associated with wanting to protect the natural world. These people express more support for pro-environmental policies, they see climate change for the threat that it is, they are more likely to accept scientific findings on the subject, and they endorse values that aim to protect the environment overall. Perceived responsibility towards the future can translate into concrete action to protect the environment for future generations.

2) Perceptions of responsibility towards future generation are, for the most part, independent of many socio-demographic variables previously identified as barriers to public engagement on climate change. This suggests that future efforts focused on increasing such perceptions may be able to circumvent or overcome established obstacles to pro-environmental action .

3) Most respondents in the survey strongly endorsed a personal responsibility towards future generations. Nearly 50% considered such responsibility “extremely important” to themselves and another 38% said it was “very important.” Americans tend to disagree on many things, particularly across the political aisle, so finding such strong agreement suggests perceptions of responsibility towards the future may represent a powerful starting point for meaningful collective action on the major issues of our time.

Let’s face it—dealing with the environmental challenges we face will be tough, in no small part because to do so will require the present generation to take costly action to protect people who will be alive far in the future. We will need to leverage every resource available to encourage individuals, communities, organisations, businesses, and entire nations to do what is needed. This includes our psychological, social, and cultural resources in addition to the political, economic, and technological ones we tend to look towards first. Our work suggests that widely shared perceptions of responsibility towards future generations represent an important and powerful tool for shifting behaviour in a positive direction to confront the climate change challenge before us. Luckily, such perceptions of responsibility are already widely shared within American society. Now it’s time to put them to work.

• This blog post is based on   Perceived responsibility towards future generations and environmental concern: Convergent evidence across multiple outcomes in a large, nationally representative sample , Journal of Environmental Psychology
• The post expresses the views of its author(s), not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School of Economics.
• Featured image by  Anthony Quintano , under a CC-BY-2.0 licence
• When you leave a comment, you’re agreeing to our  Comment Policy

About the author

Stylianos Syropoulos is a graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Ezra Markowitz is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

What is the term called for when people say, “Climate change isn’t my responsibility because I’ll be dead by the time it gets really bad.”? i.e. ‘putting responsibility on the next generation’ (when the next generation isn’t of working age or even born yet). This is essentially what Baby Boomers and Gen X have done for the last 50 years. Please let me know.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Related Posts

Which eco-labels deliver what they promise?

May 11th, 2018.

Negative interest rates are an opportunity for the UK to invest in sustainable infrastructure

October 14th, 2016.

How the bystander effect can explain inaction towards global warming

January 7th, 2020.

Satellites and the climate crisis: what are we orbiting towards?

August 19th, 2021.

• Testimonials

How to write clearly for future generations

Among the hardest materials for students to read today are the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution (Lexile scores 1350 and 1560 respectively). Because Thomas Jefferson knew future generations would be reading his words in the Declaration of Independence, he wrote them as carefully as possible in 1776.  Even so, they are difficult to understand by his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren’s generation.

Many reasons exist for this difficulty, including sentence structure, sentence length, relative pronouns, and vocabulary. I would like to analyze the first paragraph of the Declaration to see what we can learn from words Thomas Jefferson penned 240 years ago in order to improve our writing today.

Here is the Declaration’s original first paragraph:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

To begin, this paragraph is a single, 71-word sentence. We know that the more words a sentence contains, the harder it is to understand (unless the sentence is a list). If a sentence of 30 words is pushing it, a sentence of 71 words is beyond what most people can follow. Many working memories stop after the second clause.

Secondly, this 71-word sentence contains six clauses plus infinitive phrases and prepositional phrases. Three clauses in a single sentence are sometimes two too many for clear understanding. But six?

Another difficulty is the pronoun “which.” It is used three times to introduce three dependent clauses.

But perhaps the greatest problem to modern readers is the vocabulary. Many words are familiar words used in unfamiliar ways. For example, the fourth word, “course” is a word we use all the time today (a math course, the course of a river, of course), but the meaning used in the Declaration is “progress or advancement” which is no longer its primary meaning.

When “course” is combined with “events” to form the phrases “in the course of human events,” the meaning becomes more muddled. What if Jefferson had written, “When, during human history”? Wouldn’t those words have said the same thing yet made more sense? To us, yes. But Jefferson was writing the most formal document of his life.  He chose to use formal language—formal even for the 18th century.

What if Jefferson had written something like this instead?

Sometimes a group of people need to sever their political connections with another group of people and to become an independent country. When this happens, they should explain why they are separating.

My 32 words are not nearly as elegant as Jefferson’s, but to modern ears, they are easier to understand (39 fewer words; two sentences instead of one; one simple sentence and one complex sentence with just one dependent clause; and everyday vocabulary).

Think ahead 240 years to the year 2256. Will Americans then still find my words easy to understand? How can we write diaries, letters, memoirs or war stories  which will make sense to our descendants?

• Above all, write clearly.
• Write short sentences.
• Write mostly simple sentences.
• Limit the number of dependent clauses to one per sentence.
• Make sure pronouns have clearly identified antecedents.
• Use everyday vocabulary.

Share this:

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

What's your thinking on this topic? Cancel reply

One-on-one online writing improvement for students of all ages.

As a professional writer and former certified middle and high school educator, I now teach writing skills online. I coach students of all ages on the practices of writing. Click on my photo for more details.

You may think revising means finding grammar and spelling mistakes when it really means rewriting—moving ideas around, adding more details, using specific verbs, varying your sentence structures and adding figurative language. Learn how to improve your writing with these rewriting ideas and more. Click on the photo For more details.

Comical stories, repetitive phrasing, and expressive illustrations engage early readers and build reading confidence. Each story includes easy to pronounce two-, three-, and four-letter words which follow the rules of phonics. The result is a fun reading experience leading to comprehension, recall, and stimulating discussion. Each story is true children’s literature with a beginning, a middle and an end. Each book also contains a "fun and games" activity section to further develop the beginning reader's learning experience.

Mrs. K’s Store of home schooling/teaching resources

Furia--Quick Study Guide is a nine-page text with detailed information on the setting; 17 characters; 10 themes; 8 places, teams, and motifs; and 15 direct quotes from the text. Teachers who have read the novel can months later come up to speed in five minutes by reading the study guide.

Post Categories

Follow blog via email.

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address:

Peachtree Corners, GA

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

What is the role of teachers in preparing future generations?

• Download essay PDF

Subscribe to the Center for Universal Education Bulletin

Claudia costin claudia costin visiting professor of practice in education - harvard graduate school of education, former secretary of education - municipality of rio de janeiro @claudiacostin.

August 3, 2017

• 10 min read

The following essay comes from “ Meaningful education in times of uncertainty ,” a collection of essays from the Center for Universal Education and top thought leaders in the fields of learning, innovation, and technology.

This is a very ambitious goal. In many parts of the developing world, too many are left behind by not having access to school or learning the basics. Of the 121 million out-of-school children and adolescents in low- and middle-income countries, one-sixth of children did not complete primary school and one-third of adolescents did not complete lower secondary. Thirty percent of countries still do not have gender parity in primary and 50 percent do not have it in secondary.

Worst of all, 250 million children cannot read, write, or do basic arithmetic, although many of them have been in school for some years. “Schooling Ain’t Learning” states the subtitle of the excellent book from Lant Pritchett, “ The Rebirth of Education ,” which analyzes the challenges the developing world faces to ensure improvements in literacy and numeracy. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has described it as the Global Learning Crisis.

To make matters worse, the demand for skills is migrating to non-routine cognitive and interpersonal skills, since many jobs are being lost to automation . Curricula in schools do not normally consider this change and education systems do not have the tools to address these more sophisticated skills.

Globalization has made these changes present in almost every country, adding to existing inequalities and contributing to the intergenerational transmission of poverty. In many low-income, and even middle-income countries, certified teachers (i.e. teachers who have received the formal education required by the country’s regulations) lack knowledge in some subjects such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, lack adequate quantities of textbooks, and connectivity (and sometimes even electricity) is rare in school buildings. Yet, even in these cases, the demand for higher-level thinking skills is present in the labor market, imposing a double-challenge over an already overburdened school system.

In this context, what should be the role of the teacher? It would be easy to respond that if the basics do not exist, we should not expect anything more than the basics, thus allowing the next generation of students to be unskilled and unprepared for the future ahead.

In this short essay, I try to state the opposite: It is possible, with the appropriate support, to expect teachers to help students to be active citizens and professionals in these times of uncertainty.

The path to scale 21st century education in countries with struggling education ecosystems

These countries cannot make their school systems progress step-by-step, first covering the last mile in access, then promoting the outdated model of quality education for all, and finally ensuring that the system incorporates the development of a new set of skills. They will have to leapfrog and learn from countries that have previously improved their education systems.

For this to be feasible, some initial deficiencies will need to be addressed, such as a precarious pre-service and in-service education and inefficient teachers’ hiring processes. Pre-service education in the developing world tends to overemphasize the theory, at the expense of the practice of education. A curriculum reform in the tertiary institutions that prepare future teachers would be more than welcome. Only through a solid reflection on a teacher’s everyday practice could we advance towards a model where they could be seen less as a mere class provider and more as a mediator in the process of skills development—literacy and numeracy, higher order cognitive skills, or social and emotional skills. These skills are better developed through interactions, not speeches or copying from a blackboard, as most teachers do. Facilitating a class where consistent participation is expected is extremely difficult for novice teachers that were themselves taught through pedagogies that don’t demand students’ engagement.

Last year, the OECD delivered an interesting report on the strategies mathematics teachers from participating countries in PISA 2012 used to deliver their instruction. 4 The report grouped the strategies into three categories: active learning, where the emphasis is on promoting student engagement in their own learning, with support of ICT and lots of teamwork; cognitive activation, where students are challenged into a process that develops higher order thinking skills, especially problem solving and critical thinking; and teacher-directed instruction, that relies on the teacher ability to deliver good classes. According to the report, the strategies are not mutually exclusive, which demand the instructor a constant change in roles, to adjust to the kind of instruction being implemented.

Pre-service education and hiring processes in the developing world should prepare professionals that are ready to manage these more sophisticated roles as they deal with their daily teaching of classes.

In addition to this important transformation, professional development should incorporate the notion that, in addition to being a mediator, a teacher is part of a team and teaching is not an isolated work. Teachers need to learn to collaborate, co-create, plan classes, and monitor their work together. This could be in the school they are working or within a school system. Good initiatives of pairing struggling schools with better performing ones in the same area—thus dealing with the same student population—have shown promising results globally.

The real challenge is that before the profession becomes more attractive, and the pre-service education more effective, these countries need to deal with a current cohort of teachers that often lack the skills and repertoire to face this complex reality. In these cases, a blend of more scripted teaching strategies with space for experimentation and support for innovation have shown to be effective. Studies have shown that unskilled teachers benefit greatly from additional support such as pre-formatted class plans, digital classes, and more detailed textbooks.

Despite this, learning—through collaboration or professional development courses—how to deliver classes that are more engaging and allow for the student’s space to develop higher order thinking skills, is feasible even under these difficult circumstances. It just demands more structured professional development and better-prepared instructors to address these teachers’ needs.

This demands mentoring and class observations, together with structured materials to support initial efforts from the novice teacher to prepare meaningful class-plans and deliver them. It also requires some additional time if the classes are—as in some developing countries—too short or based on a curriculum overloaded with unnecessary content.

Building Global Citizens at Uncertain Times

The demands put on schools are not restricted to preparing students for the increasing demands of the labor market. A child needs to grow to be an informed member of the society in which they live and to have the knowledge and capabilities to participate. In addition to acquiring basic cognitive and social and emotional skills, a solid Global Citizenship curriculum should be introduced in the school system even in the developing world. Understanding how his or her own country is organized, and how it connects to a globalized world, will be of great value for the student.

To foster the skills needed to become a global citizen, we should develop these skills in a structured way in the teachers’ workforce. This means in-service education through collaboration and group-discussions on empathy, cultural appreciation, ethnic and gender identities, and general knowledge of current world affairs and challenges. A teacher that believes she is part of humanity and not just of a region or a country tends to foster the same perception in her students.

Ultimately, if we want students to become citizens, we need to give them a voice. Very often, in school systems, we treat teenagers as children and don’t trust them to be responsible for their own student lives and choices. This means we must trust them to take part in important decisions about the school curriculum and we must discuss their behavior issues with them directly—not their parents. This would also require allowing some space for them to make mistakes and learning to correct them effectively. A global citizen, it must be understood, is first a citizen in his own school, community, and country. If we truly want to prepare them to become informed and active members in their countries, it is important to give them some space to exercise choices and activism at an early stage.

In Rio de Janeiro, where I was municipal secretary of education, we introduced a mandatory assignment at the beginning of 7th grade, for the adolescents to state in a structured way the life project—that meant putting their dreams into words and learning to plan their future lives. They did it at the beginning of the school year, in an activity conducted with the support of 9th graders that were trained specifically for the task. Only after the whole class arrived at an acceptable proposition for each kid did the teachers enter the classroom, at which point each student could choose a mentor teacher to continue discussing their projects. The results were impressive for both students and instructors.

Using Technology to Leapfrog

Although it might seem utopic, education in low- and middle-income countries can benefit from modern technology even when the basics are lacking, if a more contextualized approach to including such tools in the classroom is taken, as a support to teachers not as an additional subject.

In China, for example, the Ministry of Education offers schools options to use digital classes. In Rio de Janeiro, when I was secretary, we took a similar approach: offering all teachers the use of digital classes prepared by trained instructors. The use of the platform has shown positive impacts on learning. Yet to take full advantage of this tool, connectivity needs to exist. In the absence of this, pen-drives or offline options were provided. Using technology for remedial education was and is still done, even when connectivity is not available.

Other possibilities are the broadcasting of classes to support instruction where specific teachers are not available. An interesting example of this innovative practice was highlighted in the Millions Learning report from the Center for Universal Education at Brookings. The school system in the state of Amazonas in Brazil had the challenge of providing physics and chemistry classes in the Amazon jungle for high school students. The solution was to enlist a teacher to broadcast classes and provide schools with a generalist teacher to ensure class participation and student engagement.

The use of technology in these examples show the possible advantages of bringing resources and a knowledge base that is not yet available in every classroom. On the other hand, the fact that in the education ecosystem it exists somewhere and may be mobilized is of great help and doesn’t give teachers the sense of disempowerment, since it is prepared by teachers from within the Amazonas system or by members of the community and not by a distant company located in another country.

Conclusions

The SDG-4 demands an organized effort to ensure that every child and adolescent in the world has the means to complete quality primary and secondary school, as well as develop skills to live a healthy and productive life. Unfortunately, as uncertainty grows, this task seems almost impossible—even in high-income countries—as more complex skills are demanded by employers and globalization requiring individuals who understand the challenges the planet is facing and that can operate in different geographies.

What should be the role of teachers, in such an environment, especially in low- and middle-income countries? This is the question I have tried to answer here, providing some clues of what could be done to ensure that the United Nation’s goal can actually produce a more educated global society, and that a better world might emerge.

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

Emily Markovich Morris, Laura Nóra, Richaa Hoysala, Max Lieblich, Sophie Partington, Rebecca Winthrop

May 31, 2024

Online only

9:30 am - 11:00 am EDT

The Brookings Institution, Washington DC

8:30 am - 4:30 pm EDT

Essay on Save Environment for Future Generations

Students are often asked to write an essay on Save Environment for Future Generations in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Save Environment for Future Generations

Introduction.

The environment is our life giver. It provides air, water, and food, essential for our survival. However, it’s under threat due to human activities.

Why Save Environment?

Saving the environment is crucial for the survival of future generations. If we don’t act now, they might not have a healthy planet to live on.

We can save the environment by reducing waste, recycling, using renewable energy, and planting trees. Each small action counts towards a larger goal.

Let’s pledge to save our environment for future generations. It’s not just our responsibility, but also our necessity.

250 Words Essay on Save Environment for Future Generations

The imperative of environmental conservation.

Environmental conservation is a pressing issue that demands immediate attention. The escalating environmental degradation is not only a threat to biodiversity but also to the very existence of future generations. It is vital to understand that the environment’s health directly correlates with our own well-being.

Human Activities and Environmental Degradation

Human activities have significantly contributed to environmental degradation. Industrialization, deforestation, and excessive use of natural resources have led to climate change, loss of biodiversity, and pollution. These activities, if continued unchecked, could lead to irreparable damage, making the planet uninhabitable for future generations.

The Role of Sustainability

Sustainability is the key to preserving the environment for future generations. It entails the responsible use of resources, ensuring their availability for future generations. By adopting sustainable practices, we can mitigate the negative impacts of human activities on the environment.

Individual Responsibility and Collective Action

While systemic changes are crucial, individual responsibility also plays a significant role. Simple actions like reducing waste, recycling, and using renewable energy can make a difference. However, to bring about substantial change, collective action is necessary. Governments, corporations, and communities must work together to implement policies and practices that protect the environment.

In conclusion, saving the environment for future generations is not just a moral obligation but a necessity for our survival. By adopting sustainable practices and taking collective action, we can ensure that future generations inherit a healthy and thriving planet. It is high time we realise that our actions today will determine the future of our planet.

500 Words Essay on Save Environment for Future Generations

The environment is an integral part of our lives, providing the necessary resources for human survival, such as air, water, food, and shelter. However, human activities have led to environmental degradation, threatening the survival of future generations. It is, therefore, paramount to save the environment for future generations.

The Current State of the Environment

The environment is currently in a precarious state due to various human activities. Industrialization, deforestation, pollution, and climate change are some of the major challenges. Industries emit harmful gases into the atmosphere, leading to air pollution and global warming. Deforestation, on the other hand, destroys habitats, disrupts ecosystems, and contributes to climate change.

Implications for Future Generations

If the current rate of environmental degradation continues, future generations will inherit a planet that is vastly different from the one we know today. They will face severe water and food shortages due to reduced agricultural output caused by climate change. They will also have to deal with the health effects of air and water pollution, including respiratory diseases and waterborne illnesses. Furthermore, they will lose the opportunity to enjoy the planet’s natural beauty and biodiversity due to habitat destruction.

Strategies for Environmental Conservation

To save the environment for future generations, it is essential to adopt sustainable practices. This includes reducing, reusing, and recycling resources to minimize waste. It also involves shifting from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, we need to protect our forests and wildlife to preserve biodiversity. This can be achieved through legal measures, such as implementing stricter laws against deforestation and poaching, and through educational measures, such as teaching people about the importance of biodiversity.

The Role of Technology

Technology can also play a crucial role in environmental conservation. For instance, advancements in clean energy technologies can help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Similarly, technology can help improve waste management, with innovations such as waste-to-energy conversion and biodegradable materials.

In conclusion, saving the environment for future generations is not just a moral obligation, but a survival necessity. It requires collective action from all sectors of society, from individuals to governments. By adopting sustainable practices, leveraging technology, and protecting our natural resources, we can ensure that future generations inherit a healthy and vibrant planet. It is a challenging task, but with concerted efforts, it is a goal within our reach.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Role of Students in Protecting Environment
• Essay on Public Awareness About Environment
• Essay on My Environment My Responsibility

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

Millennial life: How young adulthood today compares with prior generations

Over the past 50 years – from the Silent Generation’s young adulthood to that of Millennials today – the United States has undergone large cultural and societal shifts. Now that the youngest Millennials are adults, how do they compare with those who were their age in the generations that came before them?

In general, they’re better educated – a factor tied to employment and financial well-being – but there is a sharp divide between the economic fortunes of those who have a college education and those who don’t.

Millennials have brought more racial and ethnic diversity to American society. And Millennial women, like Generation X women, are more likely to participate in the nation’s workforce than prior generations.

Compared with previous generations, Millennials – those ages 22 to 37 in 2018 – are delaying or foregoing marriage and have been somewhat slower in forming their own households. They are also more likely to be living at home with their parents, and for longer stretches.

And Millennials are now the second-largest generation in the U.S. electorate (after Baby Boomers), a fact that continues to shape the country’s politics given their Democratic leanings when compared with older generations.

Those are some of the broad strokes that have emerged from Pew Research Center’s work on Millennials over the past few years. Now that the youngest Millennials are in their 20s, we have done a comprehensive update of our prior demographic work on generations. Here are the details.

Today’s young adults are much better educated than their grandparents, as the share of young adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher has steadily climbed since 1968. Among Millennials, around four-in-ten (39%) of those ages 25 to 37 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with just 15% of the Silent Generation, roughly a quarter of Baby Boomers and about three-in-ten Gen Xers (29%) when they were the same age.

Gains in educational attainment have been especially steep for young women. Among women of the Silent Generation, only 11% had obtained at least a bachelor’s degree when they were young (ages 25 to 37 in 1968). Millennial women are about four times (43%) as likely as their Silent predecessors to have completed as much education at the same age. Millennial men are also better educated than their predecessors. About one-third of Millennial men (36%) have at least a bachelor’s degree, nearly double the share of Silent Generation men (19%) when they were ages 25 to 37.

While educational attainment has steadily increased for men and women over the past five decades, the share of Millennial women with a bachelor’s degree is now higher than that of men – a reversal from the Silent Generation and Boomers. Gen X women were the first to outpace men in terms of education, with a 3-percentage-point advantage over Gen X men in 2001. Before that, late Boomer men in 1989 had a 2-point advantage over Boomer women.

Boomer women surged into the workforce as young adults, setting the stage for more Gen X and Millennial women to follow suit. In 1966, when Silent Generation women were ages 22 through 37, a majority (58%) were not participating in the labor force while 40% were employed. For Millennial women today, 72% are employed while just a quarter are not in the labor force. Boomer women were the turning point. As early as 1985, more young Boomer women were employed (66%) than were not in the labor force (28%).

And despite a reputation for job hopping, Millennial workers are just as likely to stick with their employers as Gen X workers were when they were the same age. Roughly seven-in-ten each of Millennials ages 22 to 37 in 2018 (70%) and Gen Xers the same age in 2002 (69%) reported working for their current employer at least 13 months. About three-in-ten of both groups said they’d been with their employer for at least five years.

Of course, the economy varied for each generation. While the Great Recession affected Americans broadly, it created a particularly challenging job market for Millennials entering the workforce. The unemployment rate was especially high for America’s youngest adults in the years just after the recession, a reality that would impact Millennials’ future earnings and wealth.

Income and wealth

The financial well-being of Millennials is complicated. The individual earnings for young workers have remained mostly flat over the past 50 years. But this belies a notably large gap in earnings between Millennials who have a college education and those who don’t. Similarly, the household income trends for young adults markedly diverge by education. As far as household wealth, Millennials appear to have accumulated slightly less than older generations had at the same age.

Millennials with a bachelor’s degree or more and a full-time job had median annual earnings valued at $56,000 in 2018, roughly equal to those of college-educated Generation X workers in 2001. But for Millennials with some college or less, annual earnings were lower than their counterparts in prior generations. For example, Millennial workers with some college education reported making $36,000, lower than the $38,900 early Baby Boomer workers made at the same age in 1982. The pattern is similar for those young adults who never attended college.

Millennials in 2018 had a median household income of roughly $71,400, similar to that of Gen X young adults ($70,700) in 2001. (This analysis is in 2017 dollars and is adjusted for household size. Additionally, household income includes the earnings of the young adult, as well as the income of anyone else living in the household.)

The growing gap by education is even more apparent when looking at annual household income. For households headed by Millennials ages 25 to 37 in 2018, the median adjusted household income was about $105,300 for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, roughly $56,000 greater than that of households headed by high school graduates. The median household income difference by education for prior generations ranged from $41,200 for late Boomers to $19,700 for the Silent Generation when they were young.

While young adults in general do not have much accumulated wealth, Millennials have slightly less wealth than Boomers did at the same age. The median net worth of households headed by Millennials (ages 20 to 35 in 2016) was about $12,500 in 2016, compared with $20,700 for households headed by Boomers the same age in 1983. Median net worth of Gen X households at the same age was about $15,100.

This modest difference in wealth can be partly attributed to differences in debt by generation. Compared with earlier generations, more Millennials have outstanding student debt, and the amount of it they owe tends to be greater. The share of young adult households with any student debt doubled from 1998 (when Gen Xers were ages 20 to 35) to 2016 (when Millennials were that age). In addition, the median amount of debt was nearly 50% greater for Millennials with outstanding student debt ($19,000) than for Gen X debt holders when they were young ($12,800).

Millennials, hit hard by the Great Recession, have been somewhat slower in forming their own households than previous generations. They’re more likely to live in their parents’ home and also more likely to be at home for longer stretches . In 2018, 15% of Millennials (ages 25 to 37) were living in their parents’ home. This is nearly double the share of early Boomers and Silents (8% each) and 6 percentage points higher than Gen Xers who did so when they were the same age.

The rise in young adults living at home is especially prominent among those with lower education. Millennials who never attended college were twice as likely as those with a bachelor’s degree or more to live with their parents (20% vs. 10%). This gap was narrower or nonexistent in previous generations. Roughly equal shares of Silents (about 7% each) lived in their parents’ home when they were ages 25 to 37, regardless of educational attainment.

Millennials are also moving significantly less than earlier generations of young adults. About one-in-six Millennials ages 25 to 37 (16%) have moved in the past year. For previous generations at the same age, roughly a quarter had.

On the whole, Millennials are starting families later than their counterparts in prior generations. Just under half (46%) of Millennials ages 25 to 37 are married, a steep drop from the 83% of Silents who were married in 1968. The share of 25- to 37-year-olds who were married steadily dropped for each succeeding generation, from 67% of early Boomers to 57% of Gen Xers. This in part reflects broader societal shifts toward marrying later in life. In 1968, the typical American woman first married at age 21 and the typical American man first wed at 23. Today, those figures have climbed to 28 for women and 30 for men.

But it’s not all about delayed marriage. The share of adults who have never married is increasing with each successive generation. If current patterns continue, an estimated one-in-four of today’s young adults will have never married by the time they reach their mid-40s to early 50s – a record high share.

In prior generations, those ages 25 to 37 whose highest level of education was a high school diploma were more likely than those with a bachelor’s degree or higher to be married. Gen Xers reversed this trend, and the divide widened among Millennials. Four-in-ten Millennials with just a high school diploma (40%) are currently married, compared with 53% of Millennials with at least a bachelor’s degree. In comparison, 86% of Silent Generation high school graduates were married in 1968 versus 81% of Silents with a bachelor’s degree or more.

Millennial women are also waiting longer to become parents than prior generations did. In 2016, 48% of Millennial women (ages 20 to 35 at the time) were moms. When Generation X women were the same age in 2000, 57% were already mothers, similar to the share of Boomer women (58%) in 1984. Still, Millennial women now account for the vast majority of annual U.S. births, and more than 17 million Millennial women have become mothers.

Younger generations (Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z) now make up a clear majority of America’s voting-eligible population . As of November 2018, nearly six-in-ten adults eligible to vote (59%) were from one of these three generations, with Boomers and older generations making up the other 41%.

However, young adults have historically been less likely to vote than their older counterparts, and these younger generations have followed that same pattern, turning out to vote at lower rates than older generations in recent elections.

In the 2016 election, Millennials and Gen Xers cast more votes than Boomers and older generations, giving the younger generations a slight majority of total votes cast. However, higher shares of Silent/Greatest generation eligible voters (70%) and Boomers (69%) reported voting in the 2016 election compared with Gen X (63%) and Millennial (51%) eligible voters. Going forward, Millennial turnout may increase as this generation grows older.

Generational differences in political attitudes and partisan affiliation are as wide as they have been in decades. Among registered voters, 59% of Millennials affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, compared with about half of Boomers and Gen Xers (48% each) and 43% of the Silent Generation. With this divide comes generational differences on specific issue areas , from views of racial discrimination and immigration to foreign policy and the scope of government.

Population change and the future

By 2019, Millennials are projected to number 73 million, overtaking Baby Boomers as the largest living adult generation . Although a greater number of births underlie the Baby Boom generation, Millennials will outnumber Boomers in part because immigration has been boosting their numbers.

Millennials are also bringing more racial and ethnic diversity. When the Silent Generation was young (ages 22 to 37), 84% were non-Hispanic white. For Millennials, the share is just 55%. This change is driven partly by the growing number of Hispanic and Asian immigrants , whose ranks have increased since the Boomer generation. The increased prevalence of interracial marriage and differences in fertility patterns have also contributed to the country’s shifting racial and ethnic makeup.

Looking ahead at the next generation, early benchmarks show Generation Z (those ages 6 to 21 in 2018) is on track to be the nation’s most diverse and best-educated generation yet. Nearly half (48%) are racial or ethnic minorities. And while most are still in K-12 schools, the oldest Gen Zers are enrolling in college at a higher rate than even Millennials were at their age. Early indications are that their opinions on issues are similar to those of Millennials .

Of course, Gen Z is still very young and may be shaped by future unknown events. But Pew Research Center looks forward to spending the next few years studying life for this new generation as it enters adulthood.

All photos via Getty Images

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

© 2024 Pew Research Center

The current dominant political, social, and economic systems favor short-term gains and quick fixes at the expense of longer-term planetary and human wellbeing and prosperity.

A paradigm shift is required in how we measure and value what matters to peoples and the planet.

This Policy Brief aims to shed light on why it is important to adopt a future generations approach in policy design as a way to achieve long-term sustainability and to examine how the UN intends to embrace this approach in practice.

By Özge Aydoğan, Eleonora Bonaccorsi, and Trine Schmidt 

In an effort to deliver the 2030 Agenda through a reformed multilateral system , the UN Secretary-General will publish eleven policy briefs between March and July 2023. The policy briefs are intended to propose concrete actions under Our Common Agenda and to inform the discussions of Members States in advance of the 2023 SDG Summit and the Summit of the Future in 2024. The first brief, published on 9 March under the title, ‘ To Think and Act for Future Generations ,’ provides a number of suggestions and practical steps in ensuring that intergenerational solidarity becomes the guiding star of sustainable development and renewal of the multilateral system.

Based on the Secretary-General’s paper, this Policy Brief aims to shed light on why it is important to adopt a future generations approach in policy design as a way to achieve long-term sustainability and to examine how the UN intends to embrace this approach in practice. 

Future generations are at the heart of sustainable development. The definition of sustainable development , as frequently quoted from the 1987 Brundtland report, is centered on the notion of future generations. It defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (emphasis added). Taking this definition into account, one might question why we are stuck in a short-term mindset when it comes to achieving the SDGs and a sustainable future.

The current dominant political, social, and economic systems favor short-term gains and quick fixes at the expense of longer-term planetary and human wellbeing and prosperity. A paradigm shift is required in how we measure and value what matters to peoples and the planet. To uphold the initial promises of sustainable development, it is crucial to awaken to the fact that future ways of living, interacting, and doing business are non-linear and will look very different from now on. Thus, it is of utmost importance to re-think systems based on intergenerational solidarity.

Responding to questions raised by Member States on balancing responsibility between generations, those living today and those not yet born, the policy brief highlights that the needs of present and future generations are not at odds, arguing that efforts to consider the future will leave all generations better off. It poses the need to think and act with future generations in mind as an imperative to fight inequality as “[p]rivilege and poverty both transmit powerfully across generations.” The brief also cites the elements paper for the declaration for future generations to remind us that the “intergenerational transmission of inequality, including gender inequality, is well documented.”

This is an important recognition of the structural nature of inequality, one which cannot be overcome by individuals, communities, or even countries alone. To fight inequality, we need to apply a long-term perspective, one which uses hindsight to adequately account for the injustices of the past – and foresight to understand how to transform our societies so that they become just and inclusive, now and in the future.

What’s next: Making commitments to future generations actionable

The UN Secretary-General’s policy brief recognizes that we do not lack commitments to take future generations into account, listing the many references to future generations and pointing out that nearly 400 UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions explicitly cite future generations. Some of the most notable commitments are found in the adoption of UN Charter itself, the definition of sustainable development as outlined above, and the 1997 UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Towards Future Generations .

What we lack is practical mechanisms and concrete steps. The Secretary-General’s policy brief proposes four steps to be taken at the global level. The first step is the appointment of a special Envoy for Future Generations. The envoy would have an advisory capacity focused on: intergenerational and future impacts of policies and programmes; facilitating collaboration and best practices on the topic of future generations; and better use of foresight methods. The brief recognizes that there are many examples of this approach from Member States. One notable example is the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales .

Related to the mandate of the special envoy, and linked to the notion of long-term sustainability, the brief argues that it is necessary to enhance the capacity of the UN system in applying strategic foresight methods. Strategic foresight can help us assess, understand, and adapt policies and practices that will affect generations yet to be born. This will require a significant shift in mindsets towards the long term and moving away from our current short-termism. A combination of forecasting models and foresight practices within institutions and society will help expand our collective thinking and policymaking towards systems that are centered around human values and aligned with the planetary boundaries we live in, ultimately securing the needs of present and future generations.

Third, the brief encourages Member States to adopt a political declaration on the “duties to the future.” This declaration should serve to put existing commitments made to future generations into action by making these concrete, including clearly defining what is meant by future generations.

Finally, and related to the political declaration, the Secretary-General’s policy brief suggests establishing an intergovernmental forum on future generations. This forum would play a key role in making sure commitments in the political declaration do not just add to the extensive list of previous commitments made to future generations but are put into practice. Again, in this regard the brief acknowledges the inspiration from Member States that have been working to implement a future generations perspective into policy. Examples include the Committee for the Future , a standing committee in the Finnish Parliament since 1993.

It is noteworthy that in the Welsh and Finnish examples mentioned above, working for future generations is associated with bringing in a diversity of voices, including civil society, to understand and jointly assess the impact of current activities on future generations. Thus, in addition to supporting long-term thinking, this model can also serve to encourage multi-stakeholder collaboration, with the recognition that we need diverse expertise and diverse representation to adequately consider the effects of our actions on the future. Furthermore, Wales’s Well-being of Future Generations Act aims to improve the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being. This is distinct from the 2030 Agenda, as it specifically includes culture as an additional dimension of sustainability.

The 2024 Summit of the Future and the preparatory processes ahead of it represent a unique opportunity to ensure that we uphold the core principle of sustainable development by ensuring that the decisions we take today are future-proofed and aligned with a long-term sustainability vision. It will be important that global civil society have an equal voice in the process and at the Summit, in particular to (re)introduce alternative ways of thinking about time, the future, and generations, including by drawing on Indigenous knowledge and considering the cultural sustainability of our policies and actions.

In preparation for the 2023 SDG Summit and the Summit of the Future in 2024, the UN Secretary-General is launching eleven policy briefs between March and July 2023, offering “concrete ideas” on how to advance Our Common Agenda. Timed accordingly, the SDG Knowledge Hub is publishing a series of policy briefs of its own, offering insights on the issue areas covered in these publications.

Özge Aydoğan is Director of the SDG Lab at UN Geneva .

Eleonora Bonaccorsi is Program Officer at IISD and part of the SDG Lab.

Trine Schmidt is Policy Advisor at IISD and part the SDG Lab. 

related posts

Accelerating the sdgs through the 2024 summit of the future 1 february 2023 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (413945) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, accelerating the sdgs through the 2024 summit of t... 1 february 2023 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (413945) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, reflecting on sdg knowledge hub’s top 10 most read stories of 2023 10 january 2024 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (418140) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, reflecting on sdg knowledge hub’s top 10 most re... 10 january 2024 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (418140) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, sdg summit highlights need for accelerated action to reach the goals by 2030 26 september 2019 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (394246) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, sdg summit highlights need for accelerated action ... 26 september 2019 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (394246) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, global alliance report shares three key findings on sdg 16+ 25 july 2019 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (391839) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, global alliance report shares three key findings o... 25 july 2019 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (391839) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, advisory group calls for accelerated, scaled up progress on sdg 7 to close energy gap 4 june 2019 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (389446) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, advisory group calls for accelerated, scaled up pr... 4 june 2019 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (389446) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, desa paper discusses role of supreme audit institutions in sdg implementation 22 january 2019 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (381782) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |, desa paper discusses role of supreme audit institu... 22 january 2019 0 then 4 else u.id end as user_id , u.user_email as user_email , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' when left(u.user_login,2) = 'z_' or u.id=64 then 'guest-authors' else 'thematic-experts' end as user_link_role , case when u.user_nicename like '%-account' then '' else u.user_nicename end as user_link_slug , p.pid, p.uid from wp_2_posts_authors p join wp_users u on u.id=case when find_in_set(p.post_author,'228,8,9,22,421,373')>0 then 4 else p.post_author end where p.id in (381782) ) pu join wp_usermeta fn on pu.user_id = fn.user_id join wp_usermeta ln on pu.user_id = ln.user_id join wp_usermeta dl on pu.user_id = dl.user_id join wp_usermeta ur on pu.user_id = ur.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'description_short') ds on pu.user_id = ds.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_prefix') px on pu.user_id = px.user_id left join (select * from wp_usermeta where meta_key = 'user_suffix') sx on pu.user_id = sx.user_id where fn.meta_key = 'first_name' and ln.meta_key = 'last_name' and dl.meta_key = 'description' and ur.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities' order by pu.pid desc, pu.uid asc;--> |.

The SDG Update compiles the news, commentary and upcoming events that are published on the SDG Knowledge Hub each day, delivering information on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to your inbox.

Welcome to IISD's SDG Knowledge Hub

Essay on Save Environment for Future Generation

The Earth, our home, is facing an urgent challenge: the need to save our environment for the benefit of future generations. It’s a call to action that requires our immediate attention and collective effort. In this essay, we will explore the reasons behind the importance of saving the environment, the consequences of neglect, and the ways we can take meaningful steps to secure a sustainable future.

The Gift of a Healthy Environment

Our environment provides us with clean air to breathe, fresh water to drink, and fertile soil to grow our food. Preserving these resources ensures that future generations can enjoy a high quality of life.

The Impact of Human Activities

Human activities, such as deforestation, pollution, and overconsumption, are harming the environment. These actions threaten the delicate balance of ecosystems and endanger the future of our planet.

Climate Change and Global Warming

One of the most pressing environmental issues is climate change. The burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are causing temperatures to rise, leading to more extreme weather events and rising sea levels.

Biodiversity Loss

The loss of biodiversity is another critical concern. Habitats are being destroyed, leading to the extinction of numerous plant and animal species. Biodiversity is essential for the health and stability of ecosystems.

Consequences for Future Generations

If we fail to act, future generations will inherit a world with polluted air, water scarcity, and the devastating effects of climate change. This is an inheritance we must strive to prevent.

Our Responsibility

As caretakers of the Earth, we have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect our environment. It is our duty to ensure that future generations can thrive on a healthy planet.

The Importance of Conservation

Conservation efforts, such as reforestation, waste reduction, and sustainable practices, play a crucial role in saving the environment. These actions help mitigate the damage we have caused.

Renewable Energy and Sustainable Practices

Transitioning to renewable energy sources, reducing plastic waste, and practicing sustainable agriculture are all steps we can take to lessen our impact on the environment.

Education and Advocacy

Education is a powerful tool for change. By raising awareness and advocating for environmental protection, we can inspire others to take action and make a difference.

Conclusion of Essay on Save Environment for Future Generation

In conclusion, the call to save our environment for future generations is not just a responsibility but a moral imperative. The consequences of neglecting our environment are far-reaching and affect all aspects of life on Earth. It’s our duty to take immediate and sustained action to mitigate these challenges and secure a sustainable future. Through conservation, sustainable practices, education, and advocacy, we can protect our planet and leave a legacy of environmental stewardship for the generations to come. Let us remember that the Earth is not just our home; it belongs to future generations as well. Our actions today will determine the world they inherit, and it is our responsibility to ensure that it is a world worth inheriting.

Also Check: The Essay on Essay: All you need to know

Home — Essay Samples — Business — Media — How we today influence the future generations

How We Today Influence The Future Generations

• Categories: Media Media Influence

About this sample

Words: 558 |

Published: Jan 4, 2019

Words: 558 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Heisenberg

Verified writer

• Expert in: Business Sociology

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

5 pages / 2446 words

6 pages / 2653 words

6 pages / 2811 words

3 pages / 1568 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

ABC News. (2011). Twitter: The Political Sex Scandal Response Tool of the 21st Century. Retrieved from [...]

Bulmer, J. G., McLeod, J. M., & Rice, R. E. (2009). Television and Political Life: Studies in Six European Countries. Springer Science & Business Media.Fulcher, J., & Scott, J. (2011). Sociology. Oxford University Press.Kitts, [...]

The Mexican American identity is complex and multifaceted, shaped by a rich history, cultural heritage, and the impact of immigration. As a Mexican American, I have personally experienced the challenges and triumphs of [...]

In Chapter 8 of Thirteen American Arguments, the author Howard Fineman delves into the pervasive influence of television in shaping public opinion and its impact on democracy. Through a blend of , cultural analysis, and critical [...]

I chose to discuss minority representation in media. I wanted to write about this because I have noticed that there is a certain shortcoming of non-white actors in media. With this is mind, questions I want to address are how [...]

Mankind in the twenty-first century lives in a media-immersed world. Media has been a part of our lives for decades. Since humanity needed a medium to convey information, media have been developed with advance in technology and [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Find anything you save across the site in your account

It’s Time to Stop Talking About “Generations”

By Louis Menand

The discovery that you can make money marketing merchandise to teen-agers dates from the early nineteen-forties, which is also when the term “youth culture” first appeared in print. There was a reason that those things happened when they did: high school. Back in 1910, most young people worked; only fourteen per cent of fourteen- to seventeen-year-olds were still in school. In 1940, though, that proportion was seventy-three per cent. A social space had opened up between dependency and adulthood, and a new demographic was born: “youth.”

The rate of high-school attendance kept growing. By 1955, eighty-four per cent of high-school-age Americans were in school. (The figure for Western Europe was sixteen per cent.) Then, between 1956 and 1969, college enrollment in the United States more than doubled, and “youth” grew from a four-year demographic to an eight-year one. By 1969, it made sense that everyone was talking about the styles and values and tastes of young people: almost half the population was under twenty-five.

Today, a little less than a third of the population is under twenty-five, but youth remains a big consumer base for social-media platforms, streaming services, computer games, music, fashion, smartphones, apps, and all kinds of other goods, from motorized skateboards to eco-friendly water bottles. To keep this market churning, and to give the consulting industry something to sell to firms trying to understand (i.e., increase the productivity of) their younger workers, we have invented a concept that allows “youth culture” to be redefined periodically. This is the concept of the generation.

The term is borrowed from human reproductive biology. In a kinship structure, parents and their siblings constitute “the older generation”; offspring and their cousins are “the younger generation.” The time it takes, in our species, for the younger generation to become the older generation is traditionally said to be around thirty years. (For the fruit fly, it’s ten days.) That is how the term is used in the Hebrew Bible, and Herodotus said that a century could be thought of as the equivalent of three generations.

Around 1800, the term got transplanted from the family to society. The new idea was that people born within a given period, usually thirty years, belong to a single generation. There is no sound basis in biology or anything else for this claim, but it gave European scientists and intellectuals a way to make sense of something they were obsessed with, social and cultural change. What causes change? Can we predict it? Can we prevent it? Maybe the reason societies change is that people change, every thirty years.

Before 1945, most people who theorized about generations were talking about literary and artistic styles and intellectual trends—a shift from Romanticism to realism, for example, or from liberalism to conservatism. The sociologist Karl Mannheim, in an influential essay published in 1928, used the term “generation units” to refer to writers, artists, and political figures who self-consciously adopt new ways of doing things. Mannheim was not interested in trends within the broader population. He assumed that the culture of what he called “peasant communities” does not change.

Nineteenth-century generational theory took two forms. For some thinkers, generational change was the cause of social and historical change. New generations bring to the world new ways of thinking and doing, and weed out beliefs and practices that have grown obsolete. This keeps society rejuvenated. Generations are the pulse of history. Other writers thought that generations were different from one another because their members carried the imprint of the historical events they lived through. The reason we have generations is that we have change, not the other way around.

There are traces of both the pulse hypothesis and the imprint hypothesis in the way we talk about generations today. We tend to assume that there is a rhythm to social and cultural history that maps onto generational cohorts, such that each cohort is shaped by, or bears the imprint of, major historical events—Vietnam, 9/11, COVID . But we also think that young people develop their own culture, their own tastes and values, and that this new culture displaces the culture of the generation that preceded theirs.

Today, the time span of a generational cohort is usually taken to be around fifteen years (even though the median age of first-time mothers in the U.S. is now twenty-six and of first-time fathers thirty-one). People born within that period are supposed to carry a basket of characteristics that differentiate them from people born earlier or later.

This supposition requires leaps of faith. For one thing, there is no empirical basis for claiming that differences within a generation are smaller than differences between generations. (Do you have less in common with your parents than with people you have never met who happen to have been born a few years before or after you?) The theory also seems to require that a person born in 1965, the first year of Generation X, must have different values, tastes, and life experiences from a person born in 1964, the last year of the baby-boom generation (1946-64). And that someone born in the last birth year of Gen X, 1980, has more in common with someone born in 1965 or 1970 than with someone born in 1981 or 1990.

Everyone realizes that precision dating of this kind is silly, but although we know that chronological boundaries can blur a bit, we still imagine generational differences to be bright-line distinctions. People talk as though there were a unique DNA for Gen X—what in the nineteenth century was called a generational “entelechy”—even though the difference between a baby boomer and a Gen X-er is about as meaningful as the difference between a Leo and a Virgo.

You could say the same things about decades, of course. A year is, like a biological generation, a measurable thing, the time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. But there is nothing in nature that corresponds to a decade—or a century, or a millennium. Those are terms of convenience, determined by the fact that we have ten fingers.

Yet we happily generalize about “the fifties” and “the sixties” as having dramatically distinct, well, entelechies. Decade-thinking is deeply embedded. For most of us, “She’s a seventies person” carries a lot more specific information than “She’s Gen X.” By this light, generations are just a novel way of slicing up the space-time continuum, no more arbitrary, and possibly a little less, than decades and centuries. The question, therefore, is not “Are generations real?” The question is “Are they a helpful way to understand anything?”

Bobby Duffy, the author of “The Generation Myth” (Basic), says yes, but they’re not as helpful as people think. Duffy is a social scientist at King’s College London. His argument is that generations are just one of three factors that explain changes in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. The others are historical events and “life-cycle effects,” that is, how people change as they age. His book illustrates, with a somewhat overwhelming array of graphs and statistics, how events and aging interact with birth cohort to explain differences in racial attitudes, happiness, suicide rates, political affiliations—you name it, for he thinks that his three factors explain everything.

Link copied

Duffy’s over-all finding is that people in different age groups are much more alike than all the talk about generations suggests, and one reason for all that talk, he thinks, is the consulting industry. He says that, in 2015, American firms spent some seventy million dollars on generational consulting (which doesn’t seem that much, actually). “What generational differences exist in the workplace?” he asks. His answer: “Virtually none.”

Duffy is good at using data to take apart many familiar generational characterizations. There is no evidence, he says, of a “loneliness epidemic” among young people, or of a rise in the rate of suicide. The falling off in sexual activity in the United States and the U.K. is population-wide, not just among the young.

He says that attitudes about gender in the United States correlate more closely with political party than with age, and that, in Europe, anyway, there are no big age divides in the recognition of climate change. There is “just about no evidence,” he says, that Generation Z (1997-2012, encompassing today’s college students) is more ethically motivated than other generations. When it comes to consumer boycotts and the like, “ ‘cancel culture’ seems to be more of a middle-age thing.” He worries that generational stereotypes—such as the characterization of Gen Z-ers as woke snowflakes—are promoted in order to fuel the culture wars.

The woke-snowflake stereotype is the target of “Gen Z, Explained” (Chicago), a heartfelt defense of the values and beliefs of contemporary college students. The book has four authors, Roberta Katz, Sarah Ogilvie, Jane Shaw, and Linda Woodhead—an anthropologist, a linguist, a historian, and a sociologist—and presents itself as a social-scientific study, including a “methodological appendix.” But it resembles what might be called journalistic ethnography: the portrayal of social types by means of interviews and anecdotes.

The authors adopt a key tenet of the pulse hypothesis. They see Gen Z-ers as agents of change, a generation that has created a youth culture that can transform society. (The fact that when they finished researching their book, in 2019, roughly half of Gen Z was under sixteen does not trouble them, just as the fact that at the time of Woodstock, in 1969, more than half the baby-boom generation was under thirteen doesn’t prevent people from making generalizations about the baby boomers.)

Their book is based on hour-long interviews with a hundred and twenty students at three colleges, two in California (Stanford and Foothill College, a well-regarded community college) and one in the U.K. (Lancaster, a selective research university). The authors inform us that the interviewees were chosen “by word of mouth and personal networking,” which sounds a lot like self-selection. It is, in any event (as they unapologetically acknowledge), hardly a randomized sample.

The authors tell us that the interviews were conducted entirely by student research assistants, which means that, unless the research assistants simply read questions off a list, there was no control over the depth or the direction of the interviews. There were also some focus groups, in which students talked about their lives with, mostly, their friends, an exercise performed in an echo chamber. Journalists, or popular ethnographers, would at least have met and observed their subjects. It’s mystifying why the authors felt a need to distance themselves in this way, given how selective their sample was to begin with. We are left with quotations detached from context. Self-reporting is taken at face value.

The authors supplemented the student interviews with a lexical glossary designed to pick out words and memes heavily used by young people, and with two surveys, designed by one of the authors (Woodhead) and conducted by YouGov, an Internet polling company, of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds in the United States and the U.K.

Where there is an awkward discrepancy between the survey results and what the college students say in the interviews, the authors attempt to explain it away. The YouGov surveys found that ninety-one per cent of all persons aged eighteen to twenty-five, American and British, identify as male or female, and only four per cent as gender fluid or nonbinary. (Five per cent declined to answer.) This does not match the impression created by the interviews, which suggest that there should be many more fluid and nonbinary young people out there, so the authors say that we don’t really know what the survey respondents meant by “male” and “female.” Well, then, maybe they should have been asked.

The authors attribute none of the characteristics they identify as Gen Z to the imprint of historical events—with a single exception: the rise of the World Wide Web. Gen Z is the first “born digital” generation. This fact has often been used to stereotype young people as screen-time addicts, captives of their smartphones, obsessed with how they appear on social media, and so on. The Internet is their “culture.” They are trapped in the Web. The authors of “Gen Z, Explained” emphatically reject this line of critique. They assure us that Gen Z-ers “understand both the potential and the downside of technology” and possess “critical awareness about the technology that shapes their lives.”

For the college students who were interviewed (although not, evidently, for the people who were surveyed), a big part of Gen Z culture revolves around identity. As the authors put it, “self-labeling has become an imperative that is impossible to escape.” This might seem to suggest a certain degree of self-absorption, but the authors assure us that these young people “are self-identified and self-reliant but markedly not self-centered, egotistical, or selfish.”

“Lily” is offered to illustrate the ethical richness of this new concern. It seems that Lily has a friend who is always late to meet with her: “She explained that while she of course wanted to honor and respect his unique identity, choices, and lifestyle—including his habitual tardiness—she was also frustrated by how that conflicted with her sense that he was then not respecting her identity and preference for timeliness.” The authors do not find this amusing.

The book’s big claim is that Gen Z-ers “may well be the heralds of new attitudes and expectations about how individuals and institutions can change for the better.” They have come up with new ways of working (collaborative), new forms of identity (fluid and intersectional), new concepts of community (diverse, inclusive, non-hierarchical).

Methodology aside, there is much that is refreshing here. There is no reason to assume that younger people are more likely to be passive victims of technology than older people (that assumption is classic old person’s bias), and it makes sense that, having grown up doing everything on a computer, Gen Z-ers have a fuller understanding of the digital universe than analog dinosaurs do. The dinosaurs can say, “You don’t know what you’re missing,” but Gen Z-ers can say, “You don’t understand what you’re getting.”

The claim that addiction to their devices is the cause of a rise in mental disorders among teen-agers is a lot like the old complaint that listening to rock and roll turns kids into animals. The authors cite a recent study (not their own) that concludes that the association between poor mental health and eating potatoes is greater than the association with technology use. We’re all in our own fishbowls. We should hesitate before we pass judgment on what life is like in the fishbowls of others.

The major problem with “Gen Z, Explained” is not so much the authors’ fawning tone, or their admiration for the students’ concerns—“environmental degradation, equality, violence, and injustice”—even though they are the same concerns that almost everyone in their social class has, regardless of age. The problem is the “heralds of a new dawn” stuff.

“A crisis looms for all unless we can find ways to change,” they warn. “Gen Zers have ideas of the type of world they would like to bring into being. By listening carefully to what they are saying, we can appreciate the lessons they have to teach us: be real, know who you are, be responsible for your own well-being, support your friends, open up institutions to the talents of the many, not the few, embrace diversity, make the world kinder, live by your values.”

I believe we have been here before, Captain. Fifty-one years ago, The New Yorker ran a thirty-nine-thousand-word piece that began:

There is a revolution under way . . . It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions, and social structure are changing in consequence. Its ultimate creation could be a higher reason, a more human community, and a new and liberated individual. This is the revolution of the new generation.

The author was a forty-two-year-old Yale Law School professor named Charles Reich, and the piece was an excerpt from his book “The Greening of America,” which, when it came out, later that year, went to No. 1 on the Times best-seller list.

Reich had been in San Francisco in 1967, during the so-called Summer of Love, and was amazed and excited by the flower-power wing of the counterculture—the bell-bottom pants (about which he waxes ecstatic in the book), the marijuana and the psychedelic drugs, the music, the peace-and-love life style, everything.

He became convinced that the only way to cure the ills of American life was to follow the young people. “The new generation has shown the way to the one method of change that will work in today’s post-industrial society: revolution by consciousness,” he wrote. “This means a new way of living, almost a new man. This is what the new generation has been searching for, and what it has started to achieve.”

So how did that work out? The trouble, of course, was that Reich was basing his observations and predictions on, to use Mannheim’s term, a generation unit—a tiny number of people who were hyperconscious of their choices and values and saw themselves as being in revolt against the bad thinking and failed practices of previous generations. The folks who showed up for the Summer of Love were not a representative sample of sixties youth.

Most young people in the sixties did not practice free love, take drugs, or protest the war in Vietnam. In a poll taken in 1967, when people were asked whether couples should wait to have sex until they were married, sixty-three per cent of those in their twenties said yes, virtually the same as in the general population. In 1969, when people aged twenty-one to twenty-nine were asked whether they had ever used marijuana, eighty-eight per cent said no. When the same group was asked whether the United States should withdraw immediately from Vietnam, three-quarters said no, about the same as in the general population.

Most young people in the sixties were not even notably liberal. When people who attended college from 1966 to 1968 were asked which candidate they preferred in the 1968 Presidential election, fifty-three per cent said Richard Nixon or George Wallace. Among those who attended college from 1962 to 1965, fifty-seven per cent preferred Nixon or Wallace, which matched the results in the general election.

The authors of “Gen Z, Explained” are making the same erroneous extrapolation. They are generalizing on the basis of a very small group of privileged people, born within five or six years of one another, who inhabit insular communities of the like-minded. It’s fine to try to find out what these people think. Just don’t call them a generation.

Most of the millions of Gen Z-ers may be quite different from the scrupulously ethical, community-minded young people in the book. Duffy cites a survey, conducted in 2019 by a market-research firm, in which people were asked to name the characteristics of baby boomers, Gen X-ers, millennials (1981-96), and Gen Z-ers. The top five characteristics assigned to Gen Z were: tech-savvy, materialistic, selfish, lazy, and arrogant. The lowest-ranked characteristic was ethical. When Gen Z-ers were asked to describe their own generation, they came up with an almost identical list. Most people born after 1996 apparently don’t think quite as well of themselves as the college students in “Gen Z, Explained” do.

In any case, “explaining” people by asking them what they think and then repeating their answers is not sociology. Contemporary college students did not invent new ways of thinking about identity and community. Those were already rooted in the institutional culture of higher education. From Day One, college students are instructed about the importance of diversity, inclusion, honesty, collaboration—all the virtuous things that the authors of “Gen Z, Explained” attribute to the new generation. Students can say (and some do say) to their teachers and their institutions, “You’re not living up to those values.” But the values are shared values.

And they were in place long before Gen Z entered college. Take “intersectionality,” which the students in “Gen Z, Explained” use as a way of refining traditional categories of identity. That term has been around for more than thirty years. It was coined (as the authors note) in 1989, by the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. And Crenshaw was born in 1959. She’s a boomer.

“Diversity,” as an institutional priority, dates back even farther. It played a prominent role in the affirmative-action case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, in 1978, which opened the constitutional door to race-conscious admissions. That was three “generations” ago. Since then, almost every selective college has worked to achieve a diverse student body and boasts about it when it succeeds. College students think of themselves and their peers in terms of identity because of how the institution thinks of them.

People who went to college in an earlier era may find this emphasis a distraction from students’ education. Why should they be constantly forced to think about their own demographic profiles and their differences from other students? But look at American politics—look at world politics—over the past five years. Aren’t identity and difference kind of important things to understand?

And who creates “youth culture,” anyway? Older people. Youth has agency in the sense that it can choose to listen to the music or wear the clothing or march in the demonstrations or not. And there are certainly ground-up products (bell-bottoms, actually). Generally, though, youth has the same degree of agency that I have when buying a car. I can choose the model I want, but I do not make the cars.

Failure to recognize the way the fabric is woven leads to skewed social history. The so-called Silent Generation is a particularly outrageous example. That term has come to describe Americans who went to high school and college in the nineteen-fifties, partly because it sets up a convenient contrast to the baby-boom generation that followed. Those boomers, we think—they were not silent! In fact, they mostly were.

The term “Silent Generation” was coined in 1951, in an article in Time —and so was not intended to characterize the decade. “Today’s generation is ready to conform,” the article concluded. Time defined the Silent Generation as people aged eighteen to twenty-eight—that is, those who entered the workforce mostly in the nineteen-forties. Though the birth dates of Time’s Silent Generation were 1923 to 1933, the term somehow migrated to later dates, and it is now used for the generation born between 1928 and 1945.

So who were these silent conformists? Gloria Steinem, Muhammad Ali, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Noam Chomsky, Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billie Jean King, Jesse Jackson, Joan Baez, Berry Gordy, Amiri Baraka, Ken Kesey, Huey Newton, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Andy Warhol . . . Sorry, am I boring you?

It was people like these, along with even older folks, like Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Pauli Murray, who were active in the culture and the politics of the nineteen-sixties. Apart from a few musicians, it is hard to name a single major figure in that decade who was a baby boomer. But the boomers, most of whom were too young then even to know what was going on, get the credit (or, just as unfairly, the blame).

Mannheim thought that the great danger in generational analysis was the elision of class as a factor in determining beliefs, attitudes, and experiences. Today, we would add race, gender, immigration status, and any number of other “preconditions.” A woman born to an immigrant family in San Antonio in 1947 had very different life chances from a white man born in San Francisco that year. Yet the baby-boom prototype is a white male college student wearing striped bell-bottoms and a peace button, just as the Gen Z prototype is a female high-school student with spending money and an Instagram account.

For some reason, Duffy, too, adopts the conventional names and dates of the postwar generations (all of which originated in popular culture). He offers no rationale for this, and it slightly obscures one of his best points, which is that the most formative period for many people happens not in their school years but once they leave school and enter the workforce. That is when they confront life-determining economic and social circumstances, and where factors like their race, their gender, and their parents’ wealth make an especially pronounced difference to their chances.

Studies have consistently indicated that people do not become more conservative as they age. As Duffy shows, however, some people find entry into adulthood delayed by economic circumstances. This tends to differentiate their responses to survey questions about things like expectations. Eventually, he says, everyone catches up. In other words, if you are basing your characterization of a generation on what people say when they are young, you are doing astrology. You are ascribing to birth dates what is really the result of changing conditions.

Take the boomers: when those who were born between 1946 and 1952 entered the workforce, the economy was surging. When those who were born between 1953 and 1964 entered it, the economy was a dumpster fire. It took longer for younger boomers to start a career or buy a house. People in that kind of situation are therefore likely to register in surveys as “materialistic.” But it’s not the Zeitgeist that’s making them that way. It’s just the business cycle. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

• How we became infected by chain e-mail .
• Twelve classic movies to watch with your kids.
• The secret lives of fungi .
• The photographer who claimed to capture the ghost of Abraham Lincoln .
• Why are Americans still uncomfortable with atheism ?
• The enduring romance of the night train .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

Books & Fiction

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Idrees Kahloon

By Maya Jasanoff

By Jay Caspian Kang

By Zadie Smith

• Envisioning Futures Together
• Reimagining Lotería: Participatory Futures and Cultural Renewal in Mexico
• Enhancing General Education with Strategic Foresight
• Foresight’s role in Collective Impact Initiatives
• Macrohistory, Peace and Futures | An Interview with Johan Galtung
• After Corporate Capitalism: Economics for People and Planet
• Call for Papers: WFSF XXV Conference Special Issue
• Youth Foresight with Umar Sheraz

Defining ‘Future Generations’: Epistemic Considerations on Conceptualizing a Future-Oriented Domain in Policy And Law-Making

Mikkel Knudsen 1,2* , Toni Ahlqvist 2 , Amos Taylor 2

1 Faculty of Social Sciences, Business and Economics, and Law, Åbo Akademi University, Finland 2 Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku, Finland

The rights of future generations generates increasing interest among both academics and policymakers. This article identifies two key gaps in the emerging literature. First, based on a systematic literature review, futures researchers’ recent contributions to the subfield are surprisingly subdued compared to those of other research fields. The article calls for renewed engagement from futurists. Second, the literature and policy documents are surprisingly vague on epistemic considerations conceptualising the boundaries of future generations. The articles provide novel insights to this theme through a survey of 65 Finnish and international futures scholars and foresight experts. Considering alternative conceptualizations of future generations may help enable for considering future generations’ interest in policy and law-making.

Future Generations, Policy, Law-Making, Anticipatory Governance

Introduction

The rights of future generations have become a hot topic academically and politically in recent years. Scholars increasingly debate options for political representation of future generations (Gosseries, 2008; Thompson, 2010; Gonzalez-Ricoy & Gosseries, 2016; Mackenzie, 2018; Gonzalez-Ricoy & Rey, 2019; Boston, 2021; Campos, 2021; Caney, 2022). Several nations have also introduced measures to strengthen the recognition of future generations in policymaking, albeit the institutionalization is still at an early stage (Jones et al., 2018; Radavoi & Rayman-Bacchus, 2021; Smith, 2019).

In 2021, the United Nations’ call for renewed global governance, the landmark Our Common Agenda (United Nations, 2021), took the centrality of future generations to a new level. Our Common Agenda mentions ‘future generations’ no less than 36 times. Among other suggestions, the report calls for a Declaration on Future Generations and a UN Special Envoy for Future Generations. Whether UN member states heed the call remains to be seen, but future generations, it would be fair to say, clearly sits at the heart of the current United Nations agenda.

Scholars have highlighted various reasons why future generations are now coming to the forefront. Many note how the challenges of political short-termism are becoming ever more apparent, with climate change as the paradigmatic case (Smith, 2021). Humphreys (2023: 2) quips that the longstanding framing of climate change policy as an obligation owed to future generations “ with roots in twin arcane worlds – of moral philosophy and United Nations (UN) norm building – has gone mainstream” . Another driver is the strand of literature on existential risks (cf. Tonn, 2018; 2021). Furthermore, until recent decades, empirical reality made it seem almost self-evident that each generation, “ on average and in various ways ” (Ware, 2020: 814), would be better off than their predecessor’s generation. The capacity of future generations to handle problems was therefore always greater than present generations’, and the need for concern for future generations’ problems therefore limited. For good reasons, this mindset seems less prevalent today.

As we want to show in our article, futurists used to be more preoccupied with future generations. We believe it is now about time to bring future generations studies back into futures studies. Firstly, it would help align the academic field of FS with the important future-related work happening in adjacent scholarly fields. Even if futures scholars should not be the only ones to discuss the role of future generations, futures scholars should have a role in the discussion too . Secondly, the ‘rights of future generations’ are rapidly becoming a key prism through which national and international political levels assess future implications of present actions and a key framework around which corresponding institutions are built. The concept of future generations or intergenerational equity is “increasingly moving from theoretical debates (…) to practicalities such as how to design institutions better equipped to work as advocates” (Radavoi & Rayman-Bacchus, 2021).

Future generations also feature in various national constitutions around the world. Some like Bolivia and Ecuador include provisions urging positive action on behalf of the state, while the constitution of South Africa explicitly provide future generations with rights (Boston & Stuart 2015). In a landmark 2021 decision, the German Federal Constitutional Court also extended the fundamental rights to climate protection into the future (Winter, 2022). Similarly, the rights in the Finnish constitution to a safe environment is now considered by officials to encompass future generations (Valtioneuvosto, 2023). How to take the rights of future generations into sufficient account in policy- and lawmaking is, therefore, a topic more and more governments and political systems are by law required to tackle. If futures researchers are examining how ideas about futures are inserted into present-day policymaking or legislation, the rights of future generations are therefore also an unmissable phenomenon.

Bringing Futures Studies back in

The topic of future generations has occupied the minds of generations of futures researchers, for whom the concept intuitively appeals. As Jordi Serra del Pino (2007) notes, it should be no surprise that the argument of a moral obligation towards our ‘futurecestors’ (borrowing from Inayatullah, 1997) finds a receptive audience within a community already keen on assessing the future implications of present activity. Who else but futurists should embrace future-oriented ethics and new future-oriented institutions?

Serra del Pino, however, goes on to argue for separating Future Generations Studies (FGS) from Futures Studies (FS) as two epistemologically distinct fields (Serra del Pino, 2007). FGS is a philosophical inquiry that aims to build ethically sound statements about the well-being of future generations. It seeks to generate normative moral conclusions and recipes derived from behavior based on ethical principles. FS, on the contrary, he argues, seeks to reach conclusions that are valid independently of the ethical positions of those implementing them. Futures studies aspire to obtain insight and contextual knowledge, FGS enlightenment, and absolute knowledge. Del Pino therefore concluded, in 2007, that it was time for FGS to leave the nest and fly on, and futures studies would have to let it go. “ Questions of what should be understood as Future Generations, how their needs can be ascertained and how these needs might be articulated within the limits of our present requirements, are too important to be left only to futurists.” (Serra del Pino, 2007).

Looking back 15 years later, the call seems to have been answered. Much of what is happening regarding future generations now happens almost fully outside the realm of futures studies. It is bubbling up under the auspices of moral and environmental philosophy, political science, or even legal studies. Futurists could once claim that literature on future generations and future-oriented institutions was largely unknown e.g. in conventional political science (for this claim, see e.g. Dator, 2019: 471), but this is no longer quite as true.

Epistemic considerations of conceptualizing future generations

Once the discussion has progressed to ‘practicalities’ an important practical question is raised. When discussing the rights of future generations, what exactly is constituted by that term? Explicating the epistemic considerations of what is implied by the term ‘future generations’ is, as we see it, an important precondition for strengthening the institutional framework around them. With increased practical application comes also the need for a more refined definition. If we want policies to take sufficient regard for future generations’ rights or to provide a formal representation of future generations within present political processes, it would be beneficial to be able to explain, what is entailed or encompassed by this group. The challenge can be seen as trying to find a moderate definition that recognizes obligations to future people without imposing extreme demands (Mulgan, 2018).

Ultimately, this article does not provide a clear or succinct definition of future generations. Rather, it seeks to initiate debate and further research by providing an insight into various epistemic considerations.

When talking about rights of future generations, defining ‘future generations’ is, of course, only one side of the coin. A deeper examination would also require a definition of the concept of rights . Entangling the term is worthy of a study in itself, although this is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say here that it is too simplistic to talk about rights as a monolithic concept today, nor is there any reason to believe that the interpretation of rights will not change in the future.

Aims and structure of the article

This article thus has two main aims. First, it seeks to provide a systematic overview of previous futures literature on future generations. To the best of our knowledge, no such literature review exists prior to this article. Secondly, the article discusses the difficult topic of defining future generations in the context of law- and policymaking. It provides novel material to this discussion through a survey of 65 respondents handpicked based on their expertise in foresight and future generations in lawmaking (Airos et al., 2022). With the empirical data, we are able to provide insights on how experts operating (mostly) in the futures field conceive future generations within the context discussed here. We believe this will be a valuable starting point for (re)engaging the futures field in the future generations discussion.

The article consists of six main parts. First, following this brief introduction, the article provides an explication of grounds for why present generations should care more about future generations. Then, the article provides an overview of the literature on future generations published in futures journals. From here, the text moves to the problem of defining the concept future generations. Subsequently, the rest of the article elaborates on this problem by providing empirical questionnaire data showing respondents’ interpretation of the definitional issue. Finally, the article is concluded with a discussion.

Why we should care for future generations now

The argument for a moral obligation

The central tenet within the recent movement is that political (in)action today affects future generations. Many political and societal topics exemplify the challenge of intergenerational equity. Some reflect intentional decisions like the building of a nuclear plant, others like the paradigmatic case of climate change reflect a collective drift, or are simply just unintentional consequences (Warren, 2022). Since future generations bear the burden of our decisions, people of today are seen to have a moral obligation to act in accordance with the interests of future generations.

The supposed moral obligation can be summed up in a modification of the golden rule (Thompson, 2010): Do unto future generations, as you would have past generations do unto you . To use a now popular framing, be as good an ancestor (cf. Krznaric, 2020) to future generations as you would like your ancestors to have been to you. Caney (2014: 323) puts his argument for the moral equality of future generations with present generations equally straightforward, stating simply “ that we have no reason to attribute fundamental moral importance to someone’s location in time” . A society guided by a Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance’ – the idea that one should select the principles for the basic structure of society, as if one had no advance information about one’s gender, social status, ethnicity, or indeed place in time – must therefore include intergenerational equity.

The argument for a democratic obligation

Mulgan (2006: 1) eloquently puts the moral obligation to ‘future people’ thus:

“Our actions have little impact on those who are dead, a considerable impact on those currently alive, and potentially enormous impact on those who live in the future. Perhaps the most significant impact is that our decisions affect who those future people will be, and if there will be future people at all. If we measure the moral significance of an action by the number of people it affects and the impact it has on them, then our obligations to future generations deserve to be the central topic of moral philosophy.”

The boundary problem of how to decide who legitimately make up ‘the people’ constitute an essential part of democratic theory (Dahl, 1990; Goodin, 2007). One answer is the all affected principle , i.e., that all those significantly affected by a decision should have their say in the decision-making process for it to be truly democratic. As the quotation of Mulgan above notes, future people are perhaps the most significantly affected by today’s decisions, and therefore future generations’ interests should be at the core of democratic decision-making processes (Karnein, 2016; Vermassen et al., 2022). While this sound enticing in theory, the philosophical considerations are somewhat more complicated (see e.g. Jensen, 2015), and the practical implications even more so.

The argument for better decision-making for present generations

There is also an argument that caring more about future generations could lead to better decision-making increasing the welfare and quality of life of present generations. Futurists are likely to be receptive to this argument, believing ipso facto that increased future-orientation is helpful now. As Bell (1993: 32) puts it, the “ present generation’s caring and sacrificing for future generations benefits not only future generations but also itself” . Bell puts the onus on character building, extending the notion that showing concern for others benefits one’s own character to entire generations. In a similar vein, Slaughter (1994) argues that not caring about future generations diminishes us.

However, caring for future generations could also have other benefits. If political short-termism, democratic myopia, and presentist biases are fundamental problems with current policy-processes (cf. Boston, 2021), changing these would likely yield benefits also in the short term.

The case against future generations

It is, of course, impossible to be against future generations in the actual sense of the word: future generations is a concept that can only be dealt as an emergent potentiality and as a rich variety of alternatives. However, there are some arguments against the incessant framing of future generations that merit some considerations.

A major challenge for awarding rights to future generations relates to the boundary problem. As this article shows, there is no clear, shared articulation of the temporal reach of the concept. As futurists know, societal discourse contain ambiguity as to where the present stops and the future starts (cf. Humphreys, 2023). Perhaps even more important in this context, it is similarly challenging to argue when the future ‘ends’.

As a reviewer for a previous draft of this article correctly highlighted, the term generations is by itself ambiguous. This is also a challenge for the discussion of intergenerational justice, which often draws comparisons between providing generations and recipient generations, while sometimes mixing up the notions of generations (Vanhuysse & Tremmel, 2018). Generations can mean both birth cohorts , i.e. people born within a narrow range of years, or age groups combining people within the same narrow age bracket at a given moment. Using the latter interpretation, ‘future generations’ might include future representations of our present selves. The distinction also has important implications for discussions on intergenerational justice. Uneven treatment across different age groups is not necessarily unjust, but unequal treatment perpetuated across different birth cohorts over entire life cycles create intergenerational inequity (Vanhuysse & Tremmel, 2018). Since the definitional distinction can lead to fundamentally different inferred conclusions, colloquial use of the generational term without clarification might be problematic.

There is also ambiguity about the spatial implications of the concept future generations (Humphreys, 2023). Philosophically, it is often invoked to apply universally for all future generations elsewhere; however, it is difficult to see such an interpretation e.g. of the rights of future generations in the Finnish constitution. The spatial implications could be taken even further to underline the immense complexity of the concept: by acknowledging the multitude of spatial contexts and spatially sensitive, localised forms of ‘knowing the world’ in history and in present, how can we claim to have ‘the lens’ through which to view the potential multitude of future generations? The answer to this dilemma is, simultaneously, simple and complex: there is no singular lens through which to view future generations. From spatial perspective, the concept of future generations is not global and generic, but local and contextual, built through a multitude of spatial contexts and ‘local knowledges’ (see Geertz, 2000). In principle, this spatial argument can be utilised both against and for the use of future generations concept: We can assert that there is no sense in trying to activate a concept this complex. We can also argue, vice versa, that because of its complexity, the concept should be meticulously exercised, as it can help provide, at least, partial illumination and structure in the midst of otherwise ungraspable complexity.

The suggestion of a moral obligation to future generations is also not quite as self-evident as readers here might think. Persons not sharing a common period of life can hardly acquire obligations from each other from a relationship of mutual benefit (reciprocity), nor through explicit or implicit agreement (Hubin, 1976). It is difficult to see how future generations could come to have a claim toward present generations, just as it is hard to see how we could have claims against our previous generations. Justifying obligations to future generations runs into problems if seen through a contractarian or contractualist social contract framework (Groves, 2014: 45).

Putting the spotlight on far-future generations might also reduce attentiveness to addressing immediate concerns. This is one of the critical points put forward against longtermism (Torres, 2021). One way to put it is this: If a resource-strapped Finnish government is also constitutionally bound to safeguard the rights of future generations of Finnish citizens, it may need to (or choose to) limit the resources for e.g. development aid or welfare policies today. There is, cf. longtermism, even an argument for using future generations to prioritize growth (thus securing optimal economic conditions for future generations) over alternative pathways that otherwise might be considered more sustainable.

We also see a risk that the concept of future generations can be used to cement the extended present. “ The extended present is a future that is not a future at all in the sense that it is simply an extension, and overlaying, of the present on to the future.” (Sardar, 2021). If future generations are merely seen as extensions of the present ‘us’, they might effectively serve first and foremost as legitimizing enablers of the status quo. If so, the framework of future generations closes up the future rather than opening it up. “The future in extended present is mostly a colonized future.” (Ibid.). This could be doubly problematic if the extended ‘us’ is not an actual inclusive representation, but instead, for example, “largely devoid of women and non-Westerners as well as feminist issues or issues of particular relevance for women ” (Maze, 2019) as has been shown to often be the case with futures images. One should probably be apprehensive before appointing such exclusive representations of extended ‘present us’ with difficult-to-change legal rights.

Finally, there is (cf. Serra del Pino) an epistemological argument for not conflating issues related to future generations with issues related to futures studies. These are two distinct fields of study, with distinct foci, and with distinct epistemological approaches.

Taken together, we will argue that the arguments above show that increased nuance and consideration is needed when the term ‘future generations’ is used, whether it concerns academic usage (in futures studies or elsewhere) or more distinctly political usage of the term. We see these arguments not as an antidote to our focus but rather as corroboration of our calls for taking epistemological considerations seriously and for renewed scholarly attention to the topic among futures researchers.

Future generations in futures studies: A literature review

This section examines previous literature on futures generations within academic futures journals. In addition to this material, a range of other scholarly literature exists by, or partly, by futurists. Allen Tough (Tough, 1997b) has constructed a curriculum for a (future) university course on future generations. Jim Dator (2008; 2019: 470f) has supplied interesting bibliographies on the topic. These lists provide interesting starting points, although one could hope for newer or updated bibliographies for the futures field soon.

A literature search for the term ‘future generations’ was carried out (September 2022) in the three academic databases Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar directed toward seven specific journals in the field (Journal of Futures Studies, Futures, Foresight, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, European Journal of Futures Research, World Futures Review, and On the Horizon). Primarily due to various functionalities of the given databases, the search in Scopus contained all matches within the title, abstract, or keywords, the search in Web of Science contained matches within the title, while the search in Google Scholar was for article titles only. Without limiting the search to titles (“allintitle:”future generations”), Google Scholar yielded more than 5,000 results which would be too extensive to manually sort through.

While there was naturally a large overlap between the results, each database provided unique results, wherefore the triangulation proved itself meaningful. Between all three databases, 78 results were found in total. The vast majority of the articles are published in the journal Futures . The results are shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Articles on “future generations” in Futures Studies journals

Looking through the published literature, there was a notable spike in interest during the second half of the 1990s, followed by an apparent decline in interest, before a recent revival of material on “future generations” within the futures field. This is also illustrated by Figure 1 below.

Fig 1: Articles on “future generations” in Futures Studies journals

Another notable thing is the shift in perspective. During the 1990s, several key articles discussed future generations conceptually, and with a view to ethics and the question of moral obligations (Light, 1997; Slaughter, 1994, 1996, 1997; Tough, 1993a, 1993b, 1996, 1997a). As Son (2015: 129) would later note, “ Futures studies must consider moral commitment because its existential rationale is associated with future generations helping their needs.”

Much of the field can be traced back to two groups in Malta and Kyoto, originally operating independently of each other, which separately pursued the need to create an awareness of the ethical questions related to future generations and the social structures that would allow the needs to be taken into account (Dator, 2019; Kim & Dator, 1994). Dator (2019: 231) highlights the influence of these thoughts in shaping the 1997 UNESCO “Declaration on the Responsibilities of Present Generations Towards Future Generations”, which supposedly would spread the discussion worldwide. Ironically, though, the ‘victory’ achieved through the formal international adoption of the declaration seems to have been followed by a decline of interest in the topic.

During the recent uptick of interest, most articles have a more practical focus. The research questions in the futures journals relate less to our conceptual relationship with future generations, but rather to how future generations can be formally embedded in the democratic institutions of the present (see e.g. (Boston, 2021; Jones et al., 2018; Kamijo et al., 2020; Kuroda et al., 2021; Nakagawa & Saijo, 2020; Radavoi & Rayman-Bacchus, 2021; Seo, 2017). Bruce Tonn (see e.g. Tonn, 2018) is a notable exception bridging the preceding futures literature on moral obligations with recent more institutions-oriented literature. The link between future generations and sustainable development can be found imprinted throughout the full period (e.g. (Dahle, 1998).

It is commonly pointed out in the literature that considerations about future generations are a remarkably recent invention in modern Anglo-Saxon human and social sciences scholarly discussions. Justice over time did not exist much as a topic before the 1970s, certainly not before the 1960s (Bell, 1993). Dator (2019: 230) argues that one reason for the absence of the concept in traditional ethical or moral discourse is that, until relatively recently, present generations could do relatively little by their actions or inactions to make the lives of future generations significantly better or worse than their own. However, it is also commonly pointed out that many traditional cultures have taken a broader view of time, ancestors, and ‘futurecestors’. Slaughter (1994), for example, highlights how the Iroquois appointed special chiefs as guardians of future generations. Kramer (2011) refers to Buddhist thought, and how the idea of reincarnation gives direct reason to concerns about the planet and future generations. One strength of future generations research is thus its ability to find links with other civilizational projects (Inayatullah, 1997).

If people today are obliged to act in accordance with the interests of future generations, a key question concerns what those interests are. The epistemic uncertainty related to identifying the interests of future generations is, naturally, a key barrier for conceptualizing their representation within current processes (see e.g. Gosseries, 2015).

In a series of enlightening essays, Allen Tough tackles this by asking what future generations would need from us (Tough, 1993b), and what future generations might say to us (Tough, 1997b). The seven recommendations or needs of future generations are somewhat uncontroversial and related to (1) Peace and security, (2) Environment, (3) Catastrophes, (4) Governance, (5) Knowledge, (6) Children, (7) Learning. If present generations could deliver better on these issues, the challenge of not knowing the exact interests of future generations – and the realization that future generations are unlikely to act as a monolith – has rather limited implications in practice.

The problem of defining ‘future generations’

If future generations becomes a new future-oriented domain in policy and lawmaking, it is invariably relevant to consider how future generations can be conceptualized. If future generations must be represented in policymaking, it leads not only to the epistemic uncertainty problem of identifying their interest, but also to the boundary problem of defining who future generations are . Enshrining enduring rights to future generations accentuates a similar discussion.

Defining future generations in futures studies

The question of defining future generations has received surprisingly little consideration in previous futures literature published in peer-reviewed journals. One notable exception is (Hubacek & Mauerhofer, 2008), who discusses economic, legal, and institutional aspects related to future generations.

From a legal perspective, they see one as one of the key questions dealing with future generations, where do they begin, and where do present generations end? They open the definitional issue up for both of the concept’s terms:

• Future: When does the future begin?
• Generations: How is this term defined, and is it limited to human beings? (Human/non-human and/or living/non-living beings)

They do not attempt to provide precise answers to the questions beyond stating that to “overcome this dilemma, a working definition relevant to resource consumption has to be chosen, bearing in mind other conceptions of future generations exist” (Hubacek & Mauerhofer, 2008).

We have identified no other discussion of how to define future generations within the 78 identified articles. Some futurists have tackled the topic elsewhere, e.g. within several of the chapters of the book Co-Creating a Public Philosophy for Future Generations (Kim & Dator, 1999). Acknowledging that by future generations “a number of philosophers and futurists mean those generations who will live in the next twenty-five to thirty years” (Tomov, 1999: 72), most authors in the book take a more maximalist approach. Garrett (1999: 32) explains that future generations “must be understood to include people we will never meet and to whom we have no connection, people whose welfare we consider not because of close familial bonds but because we recognize the intrinsic value of continued life on Earth.” Wendy Schultz (1999: 183) expands the scope even further “to the potential descendants of all humans, of all flora and fauna, of all geological formations, as well as the spiritual energy (either embodied or free-floating) developing on the planet.”

While these are remarkable contributions, the book chapter definitions all reflect individual preferences of what future generations should mean more so than intersubjective definitions or the result of careful analysis of how it is applied.

Defining future generations in sustainable development

The importance of future generations is one of the founding principles of sustainable development. Indeed, the very definition of sustainable development adopted by the 1987 Brundtland Commission explicitly contains a reference to future generations. Airos et al. (2022) survey five central international documents from the Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan for the Human Environment (1972) to Agenda 2030 (2015) with its Sustainable Development Goals. Through the documents, it is pointed out nine times, implicitly or explicitly, that the people of today must act in accordance with the interests of future generations. However, none of the documents defines future generations, although they are referred to a total of 42 times. Based on the key international documents, one will therefore find that future generations are used to define sustainable development, but those future generations are themselves not defined at all.

Defining future generations elsewhere

Texts in other fields have provided some definitions of future generations. For example, Hubin (1976: 70) defines future generations as ‘generations which do not overlap our own’ . (De-Shalit 1995: 141) similarly defines future generations as ‘ the people who by definition will live after the contemporary people are dead’.

While these definitions are rather simple and intuitive, they are still quite vague in practice. It seems likely that there are people (children) alive today, who will live to the year 2150. If the clause of no overlap is taken literally, we will have no future generations within the next 100-year time span. Conversely, there is no endpoint to the definition suggesting that we today have obligations reaching thousands, if not millions of years ahead.

The nuclear energy community is one field where deep-time thinking (cf. Ialenti, 2020) has long been forced to the surface due to necessity, for example when discussing the management of high-level radioactive waste. Still, the notion of future generations is not clearly defined within the community (Kermisch, 2016). The Belgian regulation, for example, separates between short-term (up to 100 years, the word short-term having different connotations regarding nuclear waste compared to most everyday usages) and long-term (after 100 years).

Relating to the issue of high-level radioactive waste, Celine Kermisch (Kermisch, 2016) suggests distinguishing between ‘close future generations’ and ‘remote future generations’. In this context, the distinction separates generations who will still have a memory of the waste and its location (close future generations), and remote future generations who have lost its memory. As final waste sites for nuclear waste could be functional for at least 10,000 years, planning for generations without a clear memory is necessary.

While the clarification of close and remote future generations is situational to the nuclear context, we believe the distinction could be applied in many other contexts too.

Futures scholars and foresight experts definitions of future generations

This section contains the result of a survey fielded to futures scholars and foresight experts to generate insights on how to improve long-term orientation in policy- and lawmaking (see Airos et al. 2022). The survey included elements on both foresight practices and improved considerations of future generations’ interests. While the survey material is richer, we focus in this article on the first question of the survey, which concerned conceptualizing future generations.

Method: Surveying foresight experts and futures scholars

The questionnaire was fielded in March/April 2022 for a handpicked list of experts that formed a futures panel. The panel of recipients was selected by the authors to bring insights on how foresight and future generations could be taken into account in lawmaking. The sampling strategy was therefore based on identifying those who had previously published and or/worked with policy foresight or with the rights of future generations.

Since the questionnaire was conducted as part of a project for the Finnish government (Airos et al., 2022), the list of recipients intentionally contained a disproportionate amount of Finnish respondents. The survey was set up in the web portal Webropol, where respondents could choose to answer the survey in either Finnish or English. An invitation to the survey was sent for 222 people of which 65 responded (a response rate of 29%). 50 respondents answered in English, 15 in Finnish.

The introductory question of the survey asked respondents to provide their conceptualization of future generations. The presumption was that respondents’ ideas about who future generations are would also shape their opinions on how future generations could be taken into account.

The precise question, respondents faced was ‘ What does the notion of future generations entail in the context of law-making?’

Respondents were then offered a selection from four preselected options, as well as an opportunity to provide a different option:

• Children and youth already living today
• People living within the next few decades
• People living within the next few centuries
• Future people whose lives will be significantly affected by our decisions
• Something else; what?

Those selecting option e) were prompted to provide an answer within an open text field. All respondents were tasked with elaborating their response (open text) with the simple prompt ‘Why?’

It is important to note that the survey clearly contextualized the definition of future generations here pertaining to the domain of law-making. This may have brought out other responses from futures scholars than they would have provided in the other contexts. It is also important to note that the selection choices were not mutually exclusive.

Since the invited respondents were selected by the authors but based on their perceived ability to contribute (i.e. not randomly), the analysis cannot be said to be representative for the futures/foresight field. It is also unlikely that all possible ranges of (especially qualitative) responses are captured in the subset. We do believe, though, that the results are indicative of thinking present within the field.

Results of the expert survey

The responses to the survey revealed the difficulties of providing a meaningful one-size-fits-all definition of future generations. It also revealed a remarkable variety in the responses. This suggests that when the topic of enshrining the rights of future generations into law or securing future generations’ representation in policymaking, the discussion participants may not be discussing the same things . While the responses here pertains to this specific context, the conclusion may have validity for other contexts too, where future generations are discussed.

This is perhaps the most important finding of the survey. The survey was not designed to provide an exact answer to what the concept of future generations entails; however, the results suggest that raising the issue is beneficial. If various parties have very dissimilar conceptualizations, the debate around and within this future-oriented domain could easily be distorted.

In Figure 2 below, we present the responses of the entire group of experts (combing the Finnish and international respondents) for the question at hand. The majority of respondents (57%) opted for the definition “ Future people whose lives will be significantly affected by our decisions ”. Next comes the options “ People living within the next few centuries “, “ People living within the next few decades ” and “ Something else “. Five percent of respondents estimate that future generations (note: In the context of law-making) refer to children and young people already living today.

Fig 2: Share of survey responses to the question “What does the notion of future generations entail in the context of law-making?” (N=65)

The answers were justified in different ways in the “why” field. We highlight the following as examples (answers provided in Finnish translated by the authors):

“In the context of decision-making and legislation, future generations can mean those generations that decision-making does not affect at this moment. Depending on the issue, decision-making can have effects for decades or even centuries.”

“Different policies create impacts on various timeframes. There is a balance to be struck between generations. (…) ‘Future generations’ is open ended – limiting impact to our children’s future lives or to decades away, or even centuries, is not necessarily useful. Some policies create lasting impact, such as urban development, forestry etc., so creating a space for those future generations to be contemplated in such decision making will create some sort of balance.”

”Because all the other options are either unfocused or too restrictive”

“Future generations can be defined individually subjectively, but when viewed objectively, the concept covers all future generations from the present moment forward.”

“… from the point of view of legislation, in my opinion, future generations refers to people whose lives are affected by legislative decisions, but who are unable to influence them due to their young age or not having been born.”

“More essential than the time span is the understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. In terms of time span, I would rather emphasize longer (50–200) than shorter.”

“I think a distinction should be made between what the notion of FGs means in law-making, and what it should mean. It is my estimation that most law-makers usually refer to current generations of young people (already living) or one generation down the line (so those living within the next decades). They definitely do not think about the next centuries. Including all those significantly affected would be ideal, but not feasible because laws that are good for the next two generations might be detrimental to those generations that follow.”

“The term ‘futures generations’ is an empty, normatively neutral vessel for whatever contents (values, norms, expectations, hopes, fears) a group wishes to put there.”

As seen, many responses suggested situational definitions, e.g., that the definition and the responsibility would match particular” actions/latency/effects”. One open response defined future generations clearly as” My (born or unborn) grandchildren and their children”, e.g., the third and fourth generation after the respondent. One respondent suggests a relevant temporal space as” more than the next few decades, but less than the next few centuries.”

The results make it clear that respondents operate with very different time horizons, while nominally discussing the same question. While neither definition is preferred by a majority, some foresight experts conceive future generations in law-making contexts as a comparably short-term issue (young generations already alive), while others have much longer implied time horizons (the next few centuries). It is notable that the response most selected was also the one, which was the vaguest.

Some respondents argued explicitly against the idea of providing temporal-bound definitions (“ I also think it’s non-sensical to draw a temporal boundary for who counts as ’future generations ’”) because the future is by definition open-ended. Others argued for rather short time horizons due to limits of cognition, either amongst themselves or as presumed amongst lawmakers. For example, one respondent noted that “ That is a time horizon that I can grasp” , while another wrote “ It’s too abstract for policymakers to consider the wellbeing of someone they have no personal relationship with. It’s much more effective to refer to their (grand)children.”

It appears to be a clear strategy identifiable among some participants that ‘future definitions’ need a relatable working definition to be operationalizable. Pragmatism may be preferred over theoretical consistency to induce the effect wished for within the policymaking process.

One English language answer differed from all the rest (Finnish and English) by mentioning ”Future civilizations, including sentient and non-sentient life forms” . All other responses seemed to implicitly or explicitly take for granted that ‘future generations’ would refer to human beings, although this definition may not be self-evident. The idea that the definition should extend beyond human beings was also brought up by respondents explaining their choice of definition (albeit, remarkably, only amongst international respondents).

As we were finalizing this article, the European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen raised up the topic of intergenerational solidarity in her 2022 State of the Union Address (European Commission, 2022). Solidarity between generations, she proposed, should even be enshrined in the EU treaties. This is another good example of how intergenerational equity now takes center-stage of political discussion. However, in the preceding sections of her speech, von der Leyen explicitly referred to “ our children’s future” and “ the next generation” .

This article sought to highlight the contemporary relevance of future generations’ studies and provide a call for futures studies to reestablish itself within the discussion. Von der Leyen’s remarks underline the interest in institutional and legal aspects of intergenerational fairness that no longer belongs to the sole realm of academics, but also increasingly shared by decision-makers. The other primary aim of the article is to ascertain epistemic considerations of how to conceptualize future generations. Again, von der Leyen’s remarks are instructive, as the narrow temporal scope of intergenerational solidarity marks a stark contrast to conceptualizations of future generations e.g. as those living when all contemporary people are dead (De-Shalit, 1995) or the maximalist framing including all geological formations and spiritual energy (Schultz, 1999).

Examinations of the surprisingly sparse previous literature on definitions of future generations, supplemented by the empirical survey material presented, leads us to conclude that conceptualizations of future generations must include contextual timeframes and, if conceptually possible, even contextual spatial settings. Even within the domain of law and policy, it is relevant to distinguish between timeframes. The concept of future generations entail different aspects in relation to tax policy compared to nuclear power policy. However, especially since there is not one all-encompassing and applicable definition of future generations, explicating the dilemmas and tensions implicit in the widely used term is important. Unless we are able to acknowledge and resolve the challenges, it will be difficult to take the call for accounting for future generations in democratic policymaking beyond the level of mere rhetoric. We invite futures studies scholars to play their important part within this new research field.

Celine Kermisch’ distinctions, inspired by nuclear waste research, between close future generations and remote future generations could be a fruitful starting point for this additional research. As raised within the survey responses, conceptual developments delineating future generations as consisting only of humans or as a broader concept are also welcomed. For example, there are good grounds for suggesting that democratic notions of the all affected-principle should be extended to nonhuman animals (e.g. Magana, 2022). Many initiatives enshrining rights to future generations are intricately linked with sustainable development and with initiatives enshrining rights to Nature itself (UNDP, 2022: 7-10).

If future generations thinking has previously been recognized by futurists for its ability to find links with other civilizational projects (Inayatullah, 1997), it could now help pave the way beyond anthropocentrism and towards novel ‘anthropocene futures’, including understanding of the deep interconnections between ‘human systems’ and ‘natural systems’. We believe futures scholars are uniquely equipped to broadening the view of possible futures and furthering post-anthropocentric conceptualizations of future generations. Already, Schultz (1999) and Hubacek & Mauerhofer (2008) suggested that future generations could include more than human beings (non-human living beings, even non-living beings). Futurists should consider what methods and framing, existing or potential, that could be utilized to support this endeavor.

To sum up, we will argue that working with future generations require at least the following epistemic considerations:

• Does the usage sufficiently distinguish between Futures Studies and Future Generations Studies? These concepts may overlap, but they are not synonyms, and clarity between the usages is needed.
• Does the term generations imply a birth cohort or a specific age group, i.e. does it refer to a group of beings at a distinct time in their lives or across their entire life cycles?
• What is the temporal reach, i.e. when does the present end, when does the future begin, and how far does the future reach?
• What are the spatial considerations of the concept? Future generations are often invoked to represent future generations everywhere , but this may not be – and probably cannot be – the case in all spatial contexts.
• Does the concept refer only to future human generation, or does it extend to all living beings, or even to non-living beings?

Arguably, the answer in all these cases is contextual. There is no clear and one-size-fits-all definition of future generations, nor should there be. However, disentangling the often very different inferred meanings using the ‘checklist’ above could help move the shared discussion forward.

Finally, arguing for the rights of open-ended future generations can entail a preference for permanence over change and adaptation. It is therefore also important to be on guard for usages that effectively legitimizes the status quo of the extended present. Striking the right balance between longtermism and dynamism is another, for now under-acknowledged, aspect of institutionalizing future generations, for which foresight and futures scholars may provide valuable insights.

Acknowledgements

This article has benefited from two funding sources. The first is the research funding from Finnish government´s analysis, assessment and research activities (FORGE project). The second source is research funding from the Academy of Finland (GYROSCOPE project, decision number 353056).

Airos, Maija, Ahlqvist, Toni, Knudsen, Mikkel, Mutanen, Anu, Rapeli, Lauri, Schauman, Jonas, Setälä, Maija, Taylor, Amos. 2022. Ennakointi ja tulevat sukupolvet lainvalmistelun prosesseissa, instituutioissa ja käytännöissä . ( Foresight and future generations in legislative processes, institutions and practices ). Publications of the Government´s analysis, assessment and research activities 2022:66. (in Finnish)

Bell, Wendell. 1993. Why should we care about future generations? In Didsbury, H. (ed) The Years Ahead: Perils, Problems, and Promises . Bethesda, MD: World Future Society.

Boston, J. (2021). Assessing the options for combatting democratic myopia and safeguarding long-term interests. Futures , 125 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102668

Caney, S. (2014). Climate change, intergenerational equity and the social discount rate. Politics, Philosophy and Economics , 13 (4). https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X14542566

Dahle, K. (1998). Toward governance for future generations: how do we change course? Futures , 30 (4). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-3287(98)00036-6

De-Shalit, A. (1995). Why posterity matters: environmental policies and future generations. Why Posterity Matters: Environmental Policies and Future Generations .

Hubacek, K., & Mauerhofer, V. (2008). Future generations: Economic, legal and institutional aspects. Futures , 40 (5). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2007.10.001

Jones, N., O’Brien, M., & Ryan, T. (2018). Representation of future generations in United Kingdom policy-making. Futures , 102 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2018.01.007

Kamijo, Y., Tamura, T., & Hizen, Y. (2020). Effect of proxy voting for children under the voting age on parental altruism towards future generations. Futures , 122 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102569

Kermisch, C. (2016). Specifying the Concept of Future Generations for Addressing Issues Related to High-Level Radioactive Waste. Science and Engineering Ethics , 22 (6). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9741-2

Kramer, W. R. (2011). Colonizing mars-An opportunity for reconsidering bioethical standards and obligations to future generations. Futures , 43 (5). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2011.02.006

Kuroda, M., Uwasu, M., Bui, X. T., Nguyen, P. D., & Hara, K. (2021). Shifting the perception of water environment problems by introducing “imaginary future generations”—Evidence from participatory workshop in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Futures , 126 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102671

Light, A. (1997). Trusting future generations, trusting life. Futures , 29 (8). https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-3287(97)00056-6

Maze, R. (2019). Politics of Designing Visions of the Future. Journal of Futures Studies, 23 (3). https://doi.org/10.6531.JFS.201903_23(3).0003

Mulgan, T. (2006). Future People: A Moderate Consequentialist Account of our Obligations to Future Generations. In Future People: A Moderate Consequentialist Account of our Obligations to Future Generations . https://doi.org/10.1093/019928220X.001.0001

Mulgan, T. (2018). Answering to future people: Responsibility for climate change in a breaking world. Journal of Applied Philosophy , 35 (3). https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12222

Nakagawa, Y., & Saijo, T. (2020). Can individuals caring little about future generations serve as their representatives? Futures , 124 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102626

Radavoi, C. N., & Rayman-Bacchus, L. (2021). The need for durable institutions for future generations: Mobilising the citizenry. Futures , 132 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2021.102820

Sardar, Z. (2021). On the Nature of Time in Postnormal Times. Journal of Futures Studies , 25 (4). https:/doi.org/10.6531.JFS.202106_25(4).0002

Seo, Y. (2017). Democracy in the ageing society: Quest for political equilibrium between generations. Futures , 85 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2016.11.002

Serra del Pino, J. (2007). Futures studies and future generations. Futures , 39 (1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2006.03.008

Slaughter, R. A. (1994). Why we should care for future generations now. Futures , 26 (10). https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-3287(94)90074-4

Slaughter, R. A. (1996). Long-term thinking and the politics of reconceptualization. Futures , 28 (1). https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-3287(95)00074-7

Slaughter, R. A. (1997). A foresight strategy for future generations. Futures , 29 (8). https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-3287(97)00052-9

Smith, G. (2019). Enhancing the Legitimacy of Offices for Future Generations: The Case for Public Participation. Political Studies . https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321719885100

Thompson, D. F. (2010). Representing future generations: Political presentism and democratic trusteeship. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy . https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230903326232

Tough, A. (1993a). Making a pledge to future generations. In Futures (Vol. 25, Issue 1). https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-3287(93)90120-i

Tough, A. (1993b). What future generations need from us. Futures , 25 (10). https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-3287(93)90072-2

Tough, A. (1996). My connectedness with future generations. Futures , 28 (6–7). https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-3287(96)84480-6

Tough, A. (1997a). Learning and teaching about future generations. Futures , 29 (8). https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-3287(97)00047-5

Tough, A. (1997b). What future generations might say to us. Futures , 29 (8). https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-3287(97)00050-5

Winter, Gerd. 2022. “The Intergenerational Effect of Fundamental Rights: A Contribution of the German Federal Constitutional Court to Climate Protection”. Journal of Environmental Law , 34. https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqab035

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

• School Education /

Write a Letter to Future Generations About The World you Hope They Inherit: Check Samples & Format

• Updated on  
• May 3, 2024

Reflecting on a future is always full of expectations. And what if the future holds hopes and dreams for the upcoming generations who will one day inherit the Earth? Everyone dreams of a world where people can live regardless of race, gender, or nationality and are treated with dignity and equality. A world powered by renewable energy where climate change is no longer a threat. A world where advancement in technology is used ethically to empower humanity rather than endanger it. Though today we are facing conflicts but believe in a world where people at present can build a world that is more peaceful tomorrow if paved with conscience, care, and collective action.

Let us delve into 3 samples of letter writing where we will be talking about all positive actions and changes that we can do today for the betterment of future generations about the world we hope they inherit. Further to help you more refer to the format and ideas that can be written more about it.

Master the art of essay writing with our blog on How to Write an Essay in English .

Table of Contents

• 1 Ideas and Points to Include in Letter to Future Generations About the World You Hope They Inherit
• 2 Sample 1: Write a Letter to Future Generations about the World you Hope they Inherit
• 3 Sample 2: Write a Letter to Future Generations About the World you Hope They Inherit
• 4 Sample 3: Write a Letter to Future Generations about the World you Hope they Inherit

Also Read: Essay on Labour Day

Ideas and Points to Include in Letter to Future Generations About the World You Hope They Inherit

Here are some ideas and points you could include in a letter to future generations:

Also Read: Write a Letter to Your Friend About Tree Plantation Programme in Your School: Check Samples and Format

Sample 1: Write a Letter to Future Generations about the World you Hope they Inherit

Check out our Speech on Autism

Also Read: Write a Letter to Your Friend Telling Him About the Celebration of Earth Day in Your School: Check Samples

Sample 2: Write a Letter to Future Generations About the World you Hope They Inherit

Also Read: Write A Letter To Your Friend Sharing Your Feelings And Ideas About Your College Life: Check Samples

Sample 3: Write a Letter to Future Generations about the World you Hope they Inherit

Also Read: Write A Letter To Your Friend Inviting To Your Village: Check Samples

Ans: Here are the ideas to start a letter to the future generation: Start a letter to future generations with Dear Future Generation. Express your hopes and dreams for the world you wished for them to inherit. Moreover, share your vision, for equality, compassion, and sustainable development. 

Ans: I hope to give future generations a word that is free from violence, discrimination, destruction, and poverty. 

Ans: To write a letter to the future, raise your voice about the hopes, dreams, and guidance about the world you hope to live in. Also discuss the values, advances, and changes that you wish to see in the society for their future. 

Ans: The future generation will shape the destiny of the world. We must pave the path for the future generation through our actions, ethics, policies, and progress. It is important to understand that our today is their tomorrow.

Ans: The concept of future generation refers to our responsibility towards what we are building for our future. We must care for the planet and should create a world as well as remedies to all the problems throughout our past and in the present for an improved world for them. 

Related Reads :

Checkout our trending essay articles

Follow Leverage Edu for more interesting topics on Letter Writing and engaging content on School Education

Deepika Joshi

Deepika Joshi is an experienced content writer with expertise in creating educational and informative content. She has a year of experience writing content for speeches, essays, NCERT, study abroad and EdTech SaaS. Her strengths lie in conducting thorough research and ananlysis to provide accurate and up-to-date information to readers. She enjoys staying updated on new skills and knowledge, particulary in education domain. In her free time, she loves to read articles, and blogs with related to her field to further expand her expertise. In personal life, she loves creative writing and aspire to connect with innovative people who have fresh ideas to offer.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Connect With Us

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today.

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Essex Direct Admission Day

Why attend .

Don't Miss Out

• Complete My Donation
• Why Save the Children?
• Charity Ratings
• Leadership and Trustees
• Strategic Partners
• Media, Reports & Resources
• Financial Information
• Where We Work
• Hunger and Famine
• Ukraine Conflict
• Climate Crisis
• Poverty in America
• Policy and Advocacy
• Emergency Response
• Ways to Give
• Fundraise for Kids
• Donor-Advised Funds
• Plan Your Legacy
• Advocate for Children
• Popular Gifts
• By Category
• Join Team Tomorrow

The Climate Crisis

Climate change is a grave threat to children’s survival.

Right now, in the U.S. and around the world, children's lives are under threat due to climate change . Nearly 710 million children are currently living in countries at the highest risk of suffering the impact of the climate crisis . However, every child will inherit a planet with more frequent extreme weather events than ever before.  

Extreme events, including wildfires , floods and hurricanes , have become a frightening new normal. Hotter temperatures, air pollution and violent storms are leading to immediate, life-threatening dangers for children, including difficulty breathing,  malnutrition and higher risk of infectious diseases. 

Save the Children is a global leader working in the U.S. and around the world to help children and their communities adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis.  Your donation today supports this life-saving work. Make a one-time donation to the Children's Emergency Fund or join Team Tomorrow to connect with the causes you care about - like the climate crisis - through your monthly donation.

Give Monthly

What Are the Effects of Climate Change on Future Generations? 

While climate change affects everyone, those who have contributed the least to the crisis—children, those in poverty, and future generations—are the most affected.

Statistics About Climate Change and Children

The climate crisis magnifies inequality , poverty , displacement and may increase the likelihood of conflict .

• 90% of diseases resulting from the climate crisis are likely to affect children under the age of five.
• By 2050, a further 24 million children are projected to be undernourished as a result of the climate crisis.
• By 2040, it is estimated that one in four children will be living in areas with extreme water shortages .
• Almost 160 million children are exposed to increasingly severe and  prolonged droughts .
• The education of around 38 million children is disrupted each year by the climate crisis.
• The climate crisis is forcing families to migrate. By 2050, there could be 143 million more migrants due to the climate crisis.

Our Work to Help Communities Adapt to the Impacts of the Climate Crisis

Because the climate crisis affects all aspects of children’s lives, so does Save the Children’s work.

Save the Children’s work ranges from food security programs for families suffering severe drought in the Horn of Africa, to providing emergency relief supplies for those recovering from the West Coast wildfires.

From green jobs that secure livelihoods , to disease reduction, to advocacy and more, Save the Children’s experts consider the short- and long-term impacts of the climate crisis and how our programs can support the present and future of children in the U.S. and around the world.

Our Humanitarian Climate Change Initiative is pushing to sustain and scale up child-centered anticipatory action systems globally. We partner with communities to use early warning systems and pre-position funds so they have the tools and resources to take action before they are hit by devastating climate events.

In 2019 Save the Children Australia became the first non-environmental NGO to be accredited by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In 2022, the organization signed a deal with GCF and the governments of Vanuatu and Australia to deliver the Pacific region’s largest ever investment in community-based climate change adaptation in Vanuatu.

Learn More About the Impact of the Climate Crisis

Addressing the Climate Crisis

Together with children and their families, we are pushing governments to recognize the climate crisis.

Climate Crisis: Hunger in the Horn of Africa

For millions of children affected by the drought-driven hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa, time is running out.

Worsening Drought Threatens Somalia’s Children

The climate crisis is a major driver of extreme weather conditions including drought. 

Sign Up & Stay Connected

Thank you for signing up! Now, you’ll be among the first to know how Save the Children is responding to the most urgent needs of children, every day and in times of crisis—and how your support can make a difference. You may opt-out at any time by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of any email.

By providing my mobile phone number, I agree to receive recurring text messages from Save the Children (48188) and phone calls with opportunities to donate and ways to engage in our mission to support children around the world. Text STOP to opt-out, HELP for info. Message & data rates may apply. View our Privacy Policy at  savethechildren.org/privacy.

• Today's news
• Reviews and deals
• Climate change
• 2024 election
• Fall allergies
• Health news
• Mental health
• Sexual health
• Family health
• So mini ways
• Unapologetically
• Buying guides

Entertainment

• How to Watch
• My Portfolio
• Latest News
• Stock Market
• Premium News
• Biden Economy
• EV Deep Dive
• Stocks: Most Actives
• Stocks: Gainers
• Stocks: Losers
• Trending Tickers
• World Indices
• US Treasury Bonds
• Top Mutual Funds
• Highest Open Interest
• Highest Implied Volatility
• Stock Comparison
• Advanced Charts
• Currency Converter
• Basic Materials
• Communication Services
• Consumer Cyclical
• Consumer Defensive
• Financial Services
• Industrials
• Real Estate
• Mutual Funds
• Credit cards
• Balance Transfer Cards
• Cash-back Cards
• Rewards Cards
• Travel Cards
• Student Loans
• Personal Loans
• Car Insurance
• Morning Brief
• Market Domination
• Market Domination Overtime
• Asking for a Trend
• Opening Bid
• Stocks in Translation
• Lead This Way
• Good Buy or Goodbye?
• Fantasy football
• Pro Pick 'Em
• College Pick 'Em
• Fantasy baseball
• Fantasy hockey
• Fantasy basketball
• Download the app
• Daily fantasy
• Scores and schedules
• GameChannel
• World Baseball Classic
• Premier League
• CONCACAF League
• Champions League
• Motorsports
• Horse racing
• Newsletters

New on Yahoo

• Privacy Dashboard

Yahoo Finance

Here’s how every generation views retirement in 2024, from gen z to baby boomers.

Different generations might have different viewpoints about retirement based on their values and experiences, but one thing just about every age group agrees on is that you need a lot of money to retire comfortably in the United States.

For You: Retirement Spending — 9 Things Even Spendthrifts Don’t Waste Money On

Check Out: 4 Genius Things All Wealthy People Do With Their Money

A study released earlier this year by Northwestern Mutual found that every generation except boomers believes it takes over $1 million to retire comfortably. The average retirement savings target is $1.46 million. Here’s how it breaks down by generation:

Gen Z : $1.63 million

Millennials : $1.65 million

Gen X : $1.56 million

Baby boomers : $990,000

If it takes that much money to retire comfortably, then most Americans are in big trouble. A 2023 analysis from Synchrony Bank looked at different retirement savings estimates and found that Americans who are at or approaching retirement age don’t have nearly as much saved up as they might want:

Average retirement savings per Vanguard

Ages 55-64 : $207,874

Ages 65+: $232,710

Median retirement savings per Federal Reserve :

Ages 55-64 : $134,000

Ages 65-74 : $164,000

In terms of how different generations view retirement, Goldman Sachs did a deep dive into the retirement aspirations and challenges of Gen Z, millennials, Gen X and boomers with its 2024 Retirement Survey & Insights Report . Here are some of the key findings.

Explore More: Suze Orman: Why Even Big Retirement Savers Are at Risk

Wealthy people know the best money secrets. Learn how to copy them .

Nearly half of Gen Zers expect to retire before age 60. About three-quarters plan to retire with less than 70% of their working income, while 61% expect to fund less than half of their nest egg from personal savings vs. Social Security or pensions. Given the challenges with Social Security and increasing longevity risk, Gen Zers have the “daunting task of determining an appropriate plan,” according to Goldman Sachs.

Here are some other key takeaways:

Save early and consistently.

Plan conservatively and periodically refine your strategy.

Expand your financial education to improve financial decision making.

Develop a spending plan to track and monitor spending and income.

Build financial resiliency by starting an emergency savings fund.

Millennials

Among all generations, millennials have been most impacted by competing financial priorities such as student loans, child care, education costs, home purchases and caring for parents. At the same time, they are also most likely to have a personalized plan for retirement and to consider hiring a financial advisor .

Other key takeaways include the following:

Strive to maintain consistent retirement savings and investing.

Leverage resources to navigate competing financial responsibilities.

Personalize your retirement saving and investing strategy.

Grow financial knowledge.

Consider professional advice to improve your financial confidence.

More than four in 10 (45%) Gen Xers say they are behind schedule for retirement savings, yet only 55% have a personalized plan for retirement. Some are beginning to enter retirement earlier than expected, mainly due to health or family care. Gen X is also the first generation to rely primarily on individual retirement savings such as 401(k) plans rather than pensions.

Here are some key things to focus on:

Maximize retirement savings and tax-deferred opportunities.

Develop a personalized retirement strategy to align with your retirement goals.

Factor healthcare implications into your retirement planning process.

Working Baby Boomers

Although many baby boomers have already retired, younger boomers are still in the workforce and likely will be for several more years. Many are retiring later in life because they feel unprepared for retirement. Healthcare is the top financial concern while guaranteed income is the top priority in retirement.

Other takeaways include the following:

Maximize retirement savings, catch-up contributions and other tax-deferred opportunities.

Consider Social Security claiming strategies.

Consider professional advice to increase your confidence regarding retirement spending.

More From GOBankingRates

10 Cars That Outlast the Average Vehicle

8 Things Boomers Should Sell Right Before Retiring

I've Secretly Put Us in Serious Debt: How To Break the News to Your Spouse

This is The Single Most Overlooked Tool for Becoming Debt-Free

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Here’s How Every Generation Views Retirement in 2024, From Gen Z to Baby Boomers

No pension, no problem: Goldman Sachs report shows how younger generations are becoming more retirement-ready than boomers

Millennials and Gen Zers are famously on their own when it comes to retirement savings, with virtually no access to pensions, and muted expectations of being able to rely on Social Security . Ironically, that pessimism actually may be helping them.

That’s according to a new report from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which surveyed over 5,200 working and retired individuals across generations. The report, which examined various obstacles in saving for retirement among baby boomers, Generation X, millennials, and Generation Z, found that younger generations were far more confident in their ability to reach their goals.

Around 45% of Gen Xers said they’re behind schedule when it comes to saving for retirement . With the introduction of 401(k)s, that generation (and the youngest boomers) became the first to begin saving primarily on their own , which led to a dearth of savings ; Goldman calls them the “401(k) experiment” generation. The report notes that some Gen Xers—the oldest will turn 60 next year—are retiring earlier than expected, not because they have the funds but because of their health or family caregiving needs .

Baby boomers, too, aren’t as confident about having saved enough for retirement as might be expected given the headlines about their unprecedented wealth . Currently aged 60 to 78, they also report retiring later than the generations before them , a trend previous research backs up . Some simply need to work longer for a paycheck, while others, buoyed by good health and longer life expectancy, want to stay in the workforce as long as possible .

“The 401(k) transition looms large for Gen X and working baby boomers, and many working Americans have taken a long time to adapt to the new retirement system—some too long,” Goldman’s report notes. “Many may lack coherent strategies for how much to save, how to invest, and when they can afford to retire.”

A different report recently noted how over 50% of so-called peak boomers—those reaching traditional retirement age—have accumulated $250,000 or less, meaning it’s likely they’ll burn through whatever assets they’ve accumulated and be dependent on Social Security. Women in that generation are faring worse than men, holding about 30% less in savings, and Hispanic and Black boomers hold far less wealth than white retirees.

‘Be mindful’

Younger generations, meanwhile, are under no illusion they can simply rely on outside contributions to bolster their retirements . So they’ve started saving on their own , and at a younger age than the generations before them : Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, has median retirement savings of $29,000 , and 68% believe they’re on track , a far higher share than Gen X or boomers, according to Goldman.

That’s promising news. The report details what a substantial difference the first decade of savings can make in the total size of someone’s nest egg. Assuming a $50,000 starting salary with 2% wage increases each year, 5% contributions from both the employee and employer, and a 6% annual return, saving during the first 10 years of one’s career can lead to 67% higher savings compared with someone who waited longer to invest, per Goldman’s calculations.

Still, some perspective might be needed. The report found once again that a large share of Gen Z wants to retire early: 44% said they want to leave the workforce before age 60, and 14% said they plan to retire between 65 and 69. But that’s a goal that could prove difficult in today’s economy —particularly given increases in life expectancy that could extend retirement periods by a decade or more.

“Gen Zers should be mindful that if they underprepare early in their career, it may be too difficult to catch up,” the report reads.

‘Financial vortex’

The oldest millennials, now approaching middle age, are facing a confluence of factors Goldman dubs the “financial vortex”: Combinations of student loan payments , credit card debt , childcare costs, home buying , and caring for elderly parents or family members are cutting into potential retirement savings . (Notably, Gen Z isn’t far behind.)

Still, millennials remain the most confident generation in their ability to retire: 69% said they’re on track or ahead of schedule with their savings, and 43% are very confident they’ll meet their goal, compared with 25% of Gen X and 22% of working boomers.

That’s impressive for a generation that has dealt with financial setback after financial setback , as well as increased costs for necessities like housing and childcare . Recent research from the Federal Reserve has found that millennials—at least the wealthiest ones—are making significant gains in wealth accumulation.

In a few respects, it has been easier for some of them: They’ve learned from older generations, but they’ve also had more and better options to save for retirement, such as automatic enrollment, Chris Ceder, a senior retirement strategist with Goldman Sachs Asset Management, told Fortune .

“These generations are being more proactive planning for their retirement and taking advantages of the resources available to them,” Ceder added.

Latest in Personal Finance

Ex-Facebook and Nike diversity manager gets 5 years in jail over $5m fraud scheme: Lawyer says she ‘got caught up’ in Facebook’s ‘move fast and break things’ culture

Capital One Miles: Everything you need to know in 2024

$80 million mansions, oceanfront views, and secret tunnels to the beach: Inside one of America’s most expensive zip codes

Costco CEO promises the hot dog and drink combo will never cost more than $1.50

Romance guild in upheaval following criticism over the way it handled an author who posted negative online comments about other writers

Nearly half of master’s degree programs leave students financially worse off—and just one subject results in a starting salary over $100k

Most popular.

Rachel Romer built a $4.4 billion education unicorn by 34—then she had a stroke. Now her CEO successor reckons with Guild’s new chapter

Michael Dell’s net worth sinks the most in a single day, falling by $11.7 billion after shares of his company suffer record selloff on weak revenue

Millennials’ midlife crisis looks different from their parents’ sports cars and mistresses—it’s a ‘crisis of purpose and engagement’

Home prices could start dropping this summer, marking the ‘first domino to fall’ on the way to a weaker economy, strategist says

The housing market is finally seeing more inventory, but buyers aren’t showing up as a ‘cold reality is settling down’