Transcripts For CSPAN2 Mauro 20240703

Opportunities. At the intersection of demographic, economic and technological development, hes one of the most original thinkers at the Wharton School and currently serves as a professor of management and vice dean for the mba for executives program. Moderating tonights program is ray suarez, host of kqeds on shifting ground and author of the forthcoming book we are home. Becoming an american in the 21st century. Please join me in welcoming Mauro Guillen and ray suarez. Professor, good to see you. Welcome to San Francisco. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Its an honor to be here, ray. Well, everybody is going to read your book. All of present company, and they will come across a phrase the multigenerational revolution and i think we ought to start there because really its the cornerstone of the book. Explain to us what it is. Well, i think in this country, especially in this country, in the United States, weve been obsessed with generations and were always looking for differences across generations. All of these, if you remember, started with the comparison between the baby boomers and those who had gone through the Great Depression and world war two. And obviously, the contrast was very sharp. But since then, we have been emphasizing the differences across generations, always looking for something that would be different as opposed to looking for the common ground. So the multigenerational revolution is all about overcoming those differences and thinking about what is it that we can do together. But not only that, how is it that we can live and work and rest throughout our lives without compartmentalizing what we do at different ages . So thats what im what im talking about in the book, partially out of exhaustion, partially out of boredom, partially to dismiss them. Do you cringe a little bit when you hear the phrase, okay, boomer . Oh, absolutely. First of all, you know, we have this human tendency to categorize it, to put people into little boxes and then forget about their individuality. So generational park is stereotyping and it can be about discriminate. It can be about, you know, very negative. Right. Its all about cliches, really, is something that we invent and we keep on, you know, using without really realizing that theres not that much evidence in favor of the fact that if people are belonging to different generations and actually different is something that really baffles me. Except youre an economist, you know that the size of generations is the impact they have when they do things en masse is real. When boomer generation has moved into the workplace. That had an effect that the economy had to create a lot of new positions for a suddenly larger workforce. Homebuilders had upped their game to meet the demand of newly created families now expanding and having children. Suburbs had to strain their resources to build new Elementary Schools and high schools. Generational impact both the generation shown on the economy, but also the economy on the generation side is real, and sometimes, as well find out with the oh 809 recession leaves scars. Oh, absolutely. So let me use a different term then for that concept that you just put on the table, which is age cohort. Right. So your age cohort can be of different sizes because fertility shifts over time, right . So the baby boomer age cohort thats not talking call it generation, it was larger than others. Thats why it was called the baby boomer. And that means, as you correctly said, of course, that the labor market, which will change also politics will change as we have age cohorts of different sizes. But thats very different from arguing that people belonging or people who were born in a different time period are intrinsically different from other people. Right . Because we call them baby boomers or we call them millennials or what have you. Thats very different. The expectation is that they may bring, as a group of people or sure, a shift based on what the real landscape is like for them. Absolutely. Im not denying that. But what i am fighting against is this attribution that people who belong to a certain age group then behave in a particular way for the rest of their lives. Thats what i dont think is good because its a generalization and were forgetting about the fact that all of these groups are made of individuals. Well, your book is a book to do battle with and one that you took me along with you through your argument as someone who watches these numbers closely and has watched and been a reporter through the ups and downs of American History over the last several decades. I was right there with you. And then sometimes its not so. Not so sure. Because theres a world that exists. And you very compelling. Only lay it out for us in the data in what really happens, whats measurable, not only in the United States, but in societies around the world. But then theres another world that lives between peoples ears. And its an almost different landscape where theyre making conclusions based on sentiment and belief and received wisdom and not always based on reality. But yet they feel very strongly. If you had spoken to, lets say, antiabortion people during the 90 hz and the 20 tens and the 20 teens and told them abortions been declining in the United States steadily for 40 years, they wouldnt have believed you. Yeah. During the years when teen birth was being described as a just a corrosive social phenomenon. Teen birth in the United States was dropping like a rock. Yet those people who have a sort of interior landscape based on the belief that its a rising threat, theyre making voting decisions, theyre making local civic decisions based not on the reality of the charts you provide us in the book, but this more complex, almost alchemical mix. Yeah, no, absolutely. But thats for two reasons, i think you would agree with me, ray. One is that when we start believing that the situation is real, although it is not, then we act accordingly. The other one, of course, is that politicians tend to exploit those things and they frame it in such a way that they can, you know, then make their policy proposals or they can, you know, do with the with the with the data, whatever they want. So its the way in which you present and you frame the data that really matters in the end. Theres no question about it. But the topic that you just mentioned that mothers know the trend is down, but we still have about right now. 16 million american women who had a child when they were teenagers, and only 2 of them graduated from college, only 2 less than half of the states in the United States dont have any programs to help teenage mothers actually get a College Degree. Right. Less than half of the states. So thats a problem. Its still a problem. The trend is down, but it is still a problem. Thats a policy challenge for American Education that it just simply chose not to meet, isnt it . Mm hmm. Yeah. So with this book, you lay out a path forward, but one that might be very difficult to get to because many of the systems that youre describing are right now in the control of people who have very little interest in changing the status quo. Will change is always difficult. Right. But you see, the environment is changing in ways that we cannot really control. So one of them is technological change, which is reshaping the labor market, reshaping jobs is reshaping politics. Everything. The other is the one that you alluded to, which is demographic change. Were having fewer babies. Right. And not only that, we are also living longer on average. Right. And were staying healthy. That means in good mental and physical shape for a longer period of time. So those trends that are very long standing. Right. Theyve been going on for a while now. Theyre reaching a critical, you know, phase. And that is transforming everything. If we dont change in the wake of those transformations, were going to be out of whack and the new economy is asking people to be more flexible. Right, because Technology Changes so quickly if individuals are not given the tools to be able to also change. Then were going to have a lot of people who dont fit right in the economy. Thats for me, the biggest problem. One of the big villains in your book is something you call the sequential l model of life. Explain what it is and why it looks to you to be a real problem. Yeah, well, it is a real problem because i think its one of the most devastating tyrannies that weve had in the world. So the sequential model of life essentially tells us that when were young, we should be playing very young. But then, you know, you should go to school and you better learn everything that you will need for the rest of your life. Right, because youre not going to have another chance of going back to school and then you work. But, hey, maybe you dont like your job, but youre supposed to work as much as you can to save as much money as you can, because the Promised Land right is retirement. Thats the sequential model of life you move from playing to studying or learning to working and then retiring. And that is completely at odds with this new flexible economy that we have now. And we technological change that requires us to be lifelong learners and to be able to switch careers quite swiftly. Right. But its also really bad for women because that model was meant for men, was put in place for men like 120 years ago or so when we came up with universal schooling and with state pensions. Right. And so its an old model. It doesnt fit the new reality. And it makes it very hard for people to take the wrong turn in their lives or make the wrong decision to recover from that bad decision. Because youve missed that transition in life. Right. So we need to move beyond that. The book is really a manifesto about that when you think about it. But one thing that is also clear is that if you decide for yourself, you know, the sequential model of life as professor oxygen points out, it doesnt really work for me. So im going to raise my hand and volunteer to step out of that model. Yeah, we dont have a very forgiving Society Today if you decide to do. Oh, absolutely not. And this is reflected in all of the movies like Rebel Without a cause. And, you know, it permeates the entire culture. But think about how things are changing, though. So 40 of americans who go into retirement eventually go back to either part time or full time job work. Thats 40 and 53 , 53 of americans who retire early do the same thing. They go back to either part time or full time work. So things are starting to change. Were also seeing that, you know, about 30 of the American Population now of all ages are engaged. Some type of learning, mostly online. So we have 40 year olds. We have 50 year olds. We have 70 year olds who are learning something now with new technology. Some of them go back to Actual University campuses, but most of them use online learning. Things are changing and theyre changing because they have to change because the economy now requires us to be so much more flexible. A lot of things have to change for us to not only break the tyranny of this sequential model, but actually build something new that fits the way people really live. Thats a big ask, isnt it . Oh, absolutely. And it wont be easy, but what we need is essentially two actors to realize that that sequential model of life is not working. So one is the government and the other one is companies. The government because well, the government employs a lot of people, but also because of the policies. And you see the government for the last hundred years, what it has been doing is classifying us into age groups and then telling us, oh, youre 15, you should be in school or youre 25, you should be working and saving for retirement. Youre 67 or you should be retiring. Thats wrong because thats not making it possible for people to actually adjust to this new reality. And then companies, well, you know, they discriminate by age. They have an employee who is 55 or 60, and theyre thinking about ways to get rid of that employee. Thats wrong. People at that age, they have a lot of experience and maybe they want to keep on working. Now that we live longer for another 20 years, why not . And so we need to change organizations and we need to change mindsets. I mean, we still think in in terms of the sequential way of living our lives. And i think its like completely obsolete by now. One of the terrifying things about turning 60 for men in america is that once they lose the primary job that carried them through their forties and fifties, they have a terrible time finding another job that next job wont last as long as they need it to and their wages start to go down. Thats right. And the benefits and the job benefits also disappear. For women, its a little different because they were unfortunately earning less throughout their tenure in the workforce. But they experience less instability after 60 in comparison to men. But men who often build their identity and their sense of selfworth and their idea about where they fit in society based on what they do and what theyve done, find that time in their life to be just terrifying. No, absolutely. But, you know, not everything is doom here, right . I mean, we can always look for the negative things. I actually you know, i would also like to send like a positive message, which is that, you know, this model that i propose in the book being a perennial, its all about reinventing ourselves. Right. Is finding meaning in what we do, especially beyond a certain age. But it also has a message for a very young people. Right. Which is, hey, youre 18. Dont think that you have to make up your mind as to what you want to be in life and you wont be able to change. I think that hopefully that will take off a lot of pressure from teenagers. Right. So think about your life as a series of careers, maybe that you will follow because life is getting very long and hey, the economy will change anyway. So its not that you will be able to be active in the same line of work for your entire life. Right. So i think its all about thinking about life in a completely different way that i think can be much more fulfilling than the way in which were living it now. But one of your core suggests hints is that one of the ways we relieve the pressure on National Old Age pension systems is by making it possible for people to easily work longer, and that is swimming upstream from where we are now becomes very hard. Absolutely. And especially in europe. And im not saying that everybody should work longer, you know, and not retire. Dont get me wrong, im not arguing for that, but im arguing in favor of giving people the chance of working longer in life if they would like to do that. And you see, most americans, when they retire, what do they do with the extra time that they have . They watch tv. They should be watching radio right . I mean, you can do the radio, right. But they watch tv, which is the worst thing you can do. You become a couch potato. They become isolated or estranged from their social networks. They are bored. They feel lonely. Thats why. So many of them i told you earlier, 40 eventually go back to work. Not necessarily because they need the money, but because they they just didnt like retirement. Retirement has been completely oversold. Some people love it, but the majority dont. Well, i dont know how they knew in the old days before the internet, but when i turned 50, this wasnt before the internet. When i turned 50 automatically, aarp, the magazine started arriving. And if you read that, it tells you if youre bored in retirement, its because you didnt plan well enough, not because youre going to live 25 years, almost a third of your life and say youre not going to work, which is crazy. But theyre saying, no, you just plan better. You wont have to go back to work if you saved. Well, that mindset that theyre offering almost sets you up for failure or a feeling of failure. Yeah, because you start accepting the fact that maybe youre not good enough to continue working or that you need to let the younger people actually work now. The multigenerational revolution is all about, you know, people working together across generations and companies that have been pioneers said that they found something really important, which is that teams work, teams that have members who are diverse in terms of age. They have higher productivity and they have higher creativity. So, you know, we could have a better economy that is more productive, more competitive if we had multiple generations in the same workplace working side by side at the other end of the continuum. Things arent so great either. Im a lot of kids are seriously unhappy. Oh, no, absolutely. Rates of Mental Illness and suicide among Young Americans are way up. But we put too much pressure on Young Children right at a very early age in that they need to start becoming adults and they need to make Big Decisions about the rest of their lives. I think that is completely counterproductive for most of us. And if you want to become a physician or you want to become an airline pilot, for those people of course you know exactly what you need to do. But for most of us, right, the future is going to be about switching careers. Its going to be about being flexible, is going to be about going back to school to learn new things because otherwise, whatever it is that we learn at an early age is going to become obsolete. Technology is going to make it obsolete. You teach at penn . I was a visiting professor at an extremely selective, small liberal arts college, so we were meeting some of the same kids and it took me a little while of talking to these kids to realize that they had been jumping through flaming hoops and standing on their head since they were in kindergarten or first grade. That the race to get a coveted seat in that school or in the university of pennsylvania starts when you really are young and theyre already talking about resumes when theyre 14 and 15 years old and their parents have them doing enrichment activities. All summer and after school. Can we bust that tyranny to. I think we should address the i think the Education System from the point of view of redefining this idea that there are some schools or some universities and colleges that are so much better than the others that you should almost, like commit a crime. Right. To try to get your children into them. You know, i think there are so many good schools and so many good universities and colleges in the United States that this is a place for every bright kid. Right. But weve become obsessed with the quality of of the school in the name, the branding that that is, i think, also an obsession that among parents. I always tell parents, look, dont dont think too much about what youre going to send your kid. Rather, you know, think about what is it that your kid is going to learn and make sure that they can handle numbers, that they know how to read and how to write because those are the skills that theyre going to need in the future to learn new things. Theres no way they can learn everything at college, right . Theyre going to have to go back to school multiple times during their lifetimes. But at the same time, parents put on some of that pressure because theyre worried. They get feedback from the society about a place that is dog eat, dog competitive, where the kids who cant clear those higher and higher hurdles end up as societys refuge. Yeah. Where if you cant compete, youre just out of it. And that anxiety, like, you know, either takes the form of, is this kid still going to be in my house when hes 30 . Or which is happening increasingly or more generously . You know, i want my person to be happy and productive and and live a life that makes sense to them. Absolutely. I mean, theres this theres a problem here, right . I mean, weve gone from raising children successfully to raising successful children. So children have become investment projects. We pour money into, you know, extracurricular activities, good schools, good colleges, hoping that they will be very successful. And of course, parents like to boast about their childrens, their children and their success rate. But thats completely the wrong model to follow. I think theres something fundamentally out of whack there that we need to change. I wont do it from here up on the stage. But if you want to hear my kids, ill see you in the lobby after professor de gens signs your book. If we were to break this structure a little bit, loosen the bonds a little bit, would we walk into a College Classroom in 2035, in 2040, and not have it be just kids between 18 and 22, but everybody who wants to be in that school at that time to learn this thing. Right. So we should be seeing 50 year olds or 60 year olds. But universities like the one for which i work are the worst of this because we continue to classify people in terms of age and we have different degrees programs for people in each of those age group. We have, you know, undergraduate degrees for people who are at most, you know, 20 or 22 years old. The exception is when you see a 30 year old. Right, getting an undergrad, then we have masters degree. We have doctorates, we have Educational Programs for people who have been, you know, who are in their 50 or 60. We should break those barriers down. Colombian tradition students. Yeah, exactly. I go, thats a term you want to get rid of, too. No, no, absolutely. What is wrong about a 16 year old or a 17 year old learning right. Something you see in china and that these days china is not the best example. Right. For many reasons. But in china, they have 55 Million People above the age of 60 studying at university. Either they have set up specifically for that age group. So its not my model, but at least they have those people attending university, right. Because they retired relatively early in china. But of course, Life Expectancy is also very long and you want them to do something so they learn how to play the piano. They become piano teachers or they do something that they like and they go back and use those skills. But you will illustrate in the book when you talk about china that theres a little bit of house of cards there because if you keep those over sixties busy, theyre not going to be able to do childcare for them, for their children, for their own children, but they only have one child. Remember, on average, right. So it is a it is an issue. It is certainly an issue. But you see what some companies are doing here in the United States. They they realize that they need to hire people in their sixties and seventies because theres not enough younger folks now. Right. And they have skills and they have experience and so on and so forth. And, you know what benefit theyre offering them . Grandparent leave so that they can take care of the grandchildren and a lot of people are debating that. Thats great. Thats a thats a progressive employer. I want to work for this company because its offering grandparents time off to take care of the grandchildren. When i was digging down into some of your your charts and some of your evidence, i was trying to think about the ways that the United States resembles and doesnt resemble other places in the world. And, you know, by 2050, most of the worlds young people or a crazily disproportion its share of the worlds young people are going to be in one place in africa. So they may have a different challenge from the one that china and south korea are looking at right now. No. Oh, absolutely. I mean, in africa, you know, theres about 300 million babies who are going to be born between now and the end of this decade. So you need to feed them and you need to school them. And its not obvious how theyre going to do that. And you have to find jobs for them or create jobs for them a little bit further down the road. If those things dont happen, then you dont have immigration. So thats migration out of africa. Immigration into mostly, you know, europe where as you know, its a problem already in the sense that europe doesnt have the capacity to absorb that much migration because it doesnt have enough jobs either. But so africa, i think, is a its an interesting place, for better or worse, is going to be central to the future of the world. Youre from europe. Many of the countries that have benefited beautifully from social Welfare Program comes from being tied together in an economic compact called the eu. They have not responded to this wonderful life that they now live by having more kids. You know, theyre all all the big ones are below replacement rate in their fertility. Whats going on there and what challenges grow out of that demographic anomaly . Well, look, i mean, were having fewer and fewer babies in the world for a number of reasons. The list is quite long, but there is one of them that is the single most important one. And its a good trend, which is that women are, you know, now have better education opportunities. When women stay in school, then they graduate from high school and then they go to college and then maybe they get a postgraduate degree. They continue working and they have a career. What they do is they postpone having their first child and here in the United States, for example, women know an average have their first child when theyre like 29 or 30. So that means that they will have one or two children. And the more educated they are, the more they postpone it. Oh, no, absolutely. In the United States, we have two kinds of women, like every everywhere else in the world, women without a high school degree. And they have on average three or four kids and then women with a College Degree in the United States. And, you know how many kids they have on average, one that is americas one child policy. You know, the americas one child policy was to open the universities to women. And once you get a lot of women in university because of the mechanism that i explained earlier, they postpone having their first child. So on average, College Educated women in the us and many other countries around the world, they have one child. Is that good of course it is. But it has implications, right . The demographic, you know, the decline in fertility has implications. But of course, its a good thing we werent wasting their talents before and now were utilizing them. I have two daughters. Im really happy about that. Right. This is a world now where women are getting ahead increasingly, although there is still discrimination. But the point is that this is a fact. This is going on no matter how much money you throw at young couples, theyre not going to have actually, like probably our parents. Right. Theyre going to have one or two. So its a very difficult problem to solve because people now have other expectations, they have other goals in life that have changed in a radical way. And by the way, the same thing happens in africa. College educated women in africa have on average one one child. But most women in africa dont have a high school degree. So they have five or six or seven children on average to go back to the very beginning of our conversation in the universe, that people carry around between their ears here in the United States, includes the idea that people everywhere are are having just having babies. The fertility in mexico has collapsed. You know, thats got some good parts to it. Some challenging parts to it. But this idea that mexicans just have tremendous numbers of no longer true hasnt been true in a long time. Yeah. Maybe we dont want it to have five. How about two . Yeah, which would get us closer to replacement level a lot of countries in the world dont have even an average of two children per woman, and that includes the United States. By the way, weve been below replacement, meaning two children, roughly speaking, per woman in the United States since nixon was in the white house. You remember those days . That was a long time ago. That was more than half a century ago. Weve been below replacement. The only reason the us has a an expanding population is immigration, which is i know, a very important topic for you and it is for me as well, and one that we are still fraught about in this country. Instead of saying, well, people want to come here, people arent clamoring to get into china. Yeah, the clamoring to get out of china. Yeah. Yes. Our population grows because of immigration. Immigrants tend to have more children than u. S. Born people do, at least for one generation or one generation. Exactly right. And we have benefit from the fact that countries, as often countries have very scarce resources as have invested in their citizens, educate them, train them, and where do they want to go . Yeah, no, absolutely. Look, we are very close to the Silicon Valley. Maybe people wont believe me. But the statistic is not in the book, but its just not worth mentioning in this context, is that 40 of all of the all of all of the ventures in Silicon Valley who have gone ipo have at least one founder or cofounder who wasnt born in the United States. Some of the biggest successes were founded by people who were not born in the United States, including companies that now have capitalized in the in the billions right. They have reshaped the Global Economy. Now, immigrants are a positive force in especially if you have a rational immigration policy. The problem of course, is when you dont have an immigration policy, what we have is a patch of immigration policies right now, a patchwork. Right. We dont have one single approach. We have all sorts of regulations having accumulated over the years. And as you know better than i do, its a very difficult situation right now. You alluded to it, and im glad you did that. There is more than one American Woman and the lives that they live in these different parts of the country, in these different parts of the economy, have a tremendous amount to say about life, chances and life choices. And as i read some of your suggested ins, your projection into a future thats created by busting this tyranny of age and generational ism, i wondered whether some of these things werent sort of upper middle class suggestions that wont necessarily work for working class women. Yeah, no, this is a very important point. Im glad that you asked the question. That is to say, is this book just for people who are already successful to make them even more successful . Right. And that the answer is no. I actually pay a lot of attention in the book and in most of my research to groups of people who have been so disadvantaged and that the current model is not serving well. So i would definitely put women in that camp because i dont think the sequential model of life is good for women. Right, because again, its too inflexible. Its too much of a straightjacket for women. It needs a little bit more flexibility. Then second, these teenage mothers we already talked about them, but its also forced their children. Its not a great model for for security because they also need another rhythm. You know, to make out, to get ahead in life. And also think about people who are recovering addicts. Theyve also made the wrong decision at some point in their lives. Right. They need more flexibility in order to be able to catch up. So we have all of this connectivity together. In my calculation is about 60 or 70 million americans right now, and theyre not wellserved by the Current System. Not at all. So i want to also help them, not just to make brady successful people even more successful. You know, most, you know, do it yourself kind of books out of that way. Right now i want to help. So people who have been sidelined by our way of life wouldnt it be necessary to take out some of the instinct for puny of policy . One of the ways we scare our children into remaining in school is by promising to punish them if they dont. One of the ways we design policy to try to keep you on the straight and narrow. For instance, if you have a drug offense when youre a teenager, your state wont give you scholarship money to attend the state university. It should be the opposite, right . They should give you more scholarship money. Well, at least step back from that idea that if you do make a mistake, it has to shadow you for the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah, because that has costs for all of us, doesnt it . I know, absolutely. In the end, actually, when you count, you know how much we have, how many resources we have to allocate to all of those people who, for one reason or another, dont progress. Right. According to the, you know, traditional model, its a staggering were actually shooting ourselves in the foot. We should change right. Another great example, by the way, is the government gives you a tax incentive if you save for your childrens education. Right. Or if you save for your retirement. Right. For one case. But you know what . If you use it for Something Else, they penalize you, rate heavily, and for example, i would actually argue, look if you have to save in your 41k for retirement, they should allow you the government should also allow you to use that money for education because maybe that would be better, right . That you spend your money not in retirement doing nothing, but rather that you spend it when youre 50 or 60 learning a new skill and then working, using that skill. So i think we just need to think about all of these in a completely different way. Thats why the book, i think, is revolutionary from that point of view. But what people say and what they do, as you know, theres a gap and its a gap that sometimes a problem when and you mention in the book that when you talk to young workers, they project out that theyre going to retire at 60. You know, and often even younger. And in the real world, they dont well, look, we all have like a very inaccurate assessments of whats going to happen to us at certain points in time. So, for example, we systematically overstate how much money were going to inherit by a wide margin. And most people, you know, including myself, probably we overstate much money were going to inherit. We overstate, you know, the extent to which going to be able to live with a certain amount of money that we saved if we go into retirement. Most people dont make the right calculation of their as well. So were pretty bad in general about making calculations, especially about the future. But politics has not responded to the way these systems, you know, have not at all borne out there at all. But which politician is going to tell you that the Current System that we have in place for pensions is unsustainable . That person will lose the next election. And the most the best finding in political science, as you know, is that politicians, their goal is to get reelected. Thats the thing that motivates them. Right. Is not making peoples lives better. And this is a finding from throughout the world. People people who go into politics, they get elected. They want to get reelected. And theyre not going to tell you the truth. The truth right now is that the Current System of pensions is unsustainable. If they say that nobody above a certain age is going to vote for them, and those people, by the way, vote at much lower rates than younger people. So no politician is going to tell you the truth about it. So between their unwillingness to be straight with the people and the disproportionate grip that older people have on policy, on politics, on the way the system operates, thats a recipe for stasis, isnt it . Well, its a recipe for intergenerational conflict. So what i discussed is in the book, whats important, i think, is to look for opportunities so that to create opportunities for that generation to collaborate with one another. Thats why i am in favor of generations going to school together, generation working together, because im hoping that i interaction will help us, you know, minimize those intergenerational conflicts which are very, very clear us like whos going to pay for all of those pensions . Whos going to pay for all of that health care . Well, its going to be younger workers. This could create a huge problem, intergenerational problem. And we need to act now on that as opposed to wait until we have a big political fight between the two groups. Well, every four years, a president campaign, if somebody is willing to to dip their toe in the water and say, look this problem with the way Social Security is set up, but dont worry, old people, were going to put the burden on young people. Yeah, thats effectively whats going on. Yeah. In every country in the world that is experiencing population aging, not just here, everywhere, this conflict is happening globally. Right. But politicians will never address it for the very simple reason that then they would lose the votes of people of a certain age. So how do we how do we you know, when youve been driving down i mean, talk about gender, when youve been driving the wrong direction and you have to finally get on the right road, it takes longer and longer to do it. The further you drive down the wrong road. Reversing course is always very difficult. And you see, i think the ideas in the book are revolutionary. But i dont mean to say that we should state gender roles in tomorrow. What i think we should do is experiment with new arrangements. We should have again, governments at all levels and companies experiment, for example, with hiring older workers, with having younger workers and older workers, you know, work together. You remember the movie the intern, right . Lovely movie. I recommend it if you havent seen it. Its really, really, you know, important for us to find that intergenerational sweet point where we can begin to overcome some of all of these issues. But somebody is anybody ready to take a haircut on this . No. Well, some companies are doing it and some governments, i think, around the world are starting to realize that this is a problem and, that they need to take action. Now, again, not change everything from one day to the next, but begin with pilot programs and with experiments. Look at the social chaos that was unleashed in france when Emmanuel Macron tried to reform pensions there. Yeah, but you know, the french. Im from spain, so i cannot tell you anything positive about the french. But the french are always complaining on average, the people in france retire at age 62. Thats the effective rates of retirement. Whatever the law says right. 62, what are they complaining about . Well, theyre actually going to need to work all the way to 65. Yeah, yeah. In the us is seven years longer than that. Its you know, its 67, 68. Well what youre proposing is a massive lift politically. Oh it is. And, and a gradual approach would seem to almost be required. Yeah, but evangelism also is required. Isnt it the idea that people have to understand why were all going to embark on this thing . Well, absolutely. To understand whats in it for them. The first thing is to, you know, change our mindset about how we our lives and the fact that were going to have to be learners throughout our lives and then try to build bridges with generations. I think thats really, really important. If not, were going to get into intergenerational warfare very quickly. So at the end of your scheme of 35 year old at home wont be a failure. A 70 year old living with his or her children wont be an imposition and stepping in and out of school and the work force at different times of life will be natural rather than just eruption to your life. Yeah, well, i think youre pushing things too far, but its a fair. Its a fair. Its not a criticism. I think its a fair. You know, like a wake up call in that the name of the game here shouldnt be to try to reach a utopia, but rather to take steps that are realistic in this direction. Right. So im defining like a utopia, right . What i think is really important and iterative that towards the end of of the of the book is to take steps that direction right. That i think is whats really threatening. But let me just tell you a sample today i was having lunch with an alumnus from my high school and he was telling me that his brother, it started as a ballet dancer, not just any kind of ballet dancer. He actually made it into the American Ballet Theater Company in new york city, the finest in the country. Right. And you know who is doing what hes doing now, 25, 30 years later, hes the chief Investment Officer at Stanford University running the endowment, one of the largest endowments in the world he never finished high school. He never finished high school. He was admitted at a college, an unusually age, as a nontraditional student. Right. And then after that, he thrived and he became he has become the chief Investment Officer of no less than Stanford University. He was a ballet dancer. Thats the kind of person that we need in this new, changing, global. What an extreme case. Yes, but one that shows that the possibilities of what what could be out there. One of the the struck difficulties is the way weve set up our elementary secondary postsecondary Education System sort of shuttles you from one into the other. And if a kids says if a kid has the temerity to say, im not ready or i dont want to, boy, were not very forgiving of that kid. And if that person says at 26, now im ready, yeah, were not very good, then either. Now, if a train has left the station and youre still on the platform. Its very difficult to recover from that. Not just in the us, everywhere in the world, given the system that we have very difficult. But you arguably could be learning increasing your potential value, having the world make a little bit more sense to yourself, also being clearer about what you want to learn. If you Start College at 25, instead of eight. Well, absolutely, absolutely. Because you have more experience. But i think that would also be beneficial to people who are 18. So again, to have people of different ages going through college together, right. One of the most vivid passages in the book quotes a woman since im 69 years old. And that means i am unemployable. Im just too old. No one takes me seriously for a job, even in things i excelled at. Yeah, that for an a economist, thats just wasted capital, right . Its dramatic. Its absolutely dramatic. And poor woman, right. Who finds herself in that situation. Poor men who find themselves in that situation. Were wasting talent. Were absolutely wasting talent. Thats not good for anybody. We just spent 100 and however many years evolving a system around a 40 hour work week and a five day work week. And if at 69, you say, you know, if i could work 30 hours a week, id happily do it, but not you dont get to come through the door and dictate your conditions. But thats what we need more flexibility also in employment systems. Companies need to think about what would it take to have that 70 year old who has all of these amazing skills work for my company . Right. It could be that its a ramp leave rate or it could be Something Else like a shorter work. But are managers ready for that . Not just flexibility . Certainly not. I mean, go back in time to General Motors or ibm in the 1950s, all of the employees were men, right . At some level, all of the managers were men. And they were supposed to make progress through the hierarchy. Right. At certain points in their lives. And otherwise they would be falling behind right. But, you know, both of those companies were bankrupt at some point. Right. They didnt adjust. Now, the world is very different. We need a completely different system if we want to be successful. Have you thought about the transition and how long it might take . Well, i think, as you said, it has to be a gradual transition. It will take a long time, but the sooner start, the better, because the economy keeps shifting and technology. Gibson you know, giving us surprises like, you know, aig most recently. Its interesting to me, you know, i grew up in as a reporter in the the reagan years and the the thatcher years and preaching the gospel, all of Market Conditions create realities on the ground for enterprises and for workers. And the milton argument and there are big forces that you describe in the book that should already be shaping the workplace and the university, you know, and theyre not so apparently economicus isnt that reliable . He doesnt always its not she doesnt always work in her own. But at some point, i do believe in markets and in competition. And i think companies, perhaps also Government Agencies will at some point understand that unless they tap into that talent pool that we were talking about, theyre not going to be competitive. So i think in the end, the discipline of competition in the market will get us somewhere. I do believe in that. The companies will realize, hey, were wasting, you know, the brains of half of our workers because once they turn 40, we no longer train them. We no longer give them opportunities to improve. Right. And by the way, thatcher and reagan, two career switchers are not the best models for this. But reagan didnt start as a politician. Right as we all know. And thatcher was a researcher at oxford university. She actually came up with the way to manufacture an ice cream so that it would last longer. She was a chemist. Thats why they called her the iron lady of soft serve in britain. Right . Yeah. What . She was called so. Theyre not the best examples. I dont agree with many of their policies, but they were career switchers. They reinvented themselves, right . They did. But here, as heres an example of society, we as a society wide game of Musical Chairs right now age cohorts are shrinking, but universities arent going out of business and colleges arent going out of business as fast as age cohorts are shrinking because they just spent the last 30 years investing and getting bigger building more dorms, more cafeterias, more athletic fields, as if they couldnt see 18 years ago when a certain number kids were born, that now, with the entering class of 2023, which is just now heading to school at the end august, that there was going to be a problem and of oil. Boy, is there a problem . Absolutely. A lot of colleges and universities shutting down programs. And to make matters worse, the us has become less conducive to foreign students coming here. Right. Because issues and all sorts of other things. And so its not just study demographics within the United States, its also that fewer International Students are coming to United States to study. And you know what . When you take a look at the balance of payments of the United States, the Number One Service industry in terms of exports is financial services. The number two is education because when a foreign student comes in, United States brings in money. Were exporting a service to the rest of the world. Theyre paying for that education. Youre right. The second most important export Industry Service industry, the United States, is education. And would killing it because of immigration, you know, constrains us because of visa constraints for students. I could talk to you for another 3 hours, but im going to ask the audience is absolutely when some aspects of human life like child rearing years are indeed more fit for specific periods of life, what are the boundaries to the ideas of perennials . Its a great question. And of course, biology matters here. And we cannot have kids, you know, at age 85, or at least not yet. The problem here is that we have taken that a second strain, especially for women. And thats not fair. Right. So we have to work around that. We have to introduce other systems, right. So that women, for example, can both pursue career and have a family and that we should make men like also, you know, do our fair share at home, which is at the other problem, right. That the men dont interrupt their careers for having children, but women frequently have to do so. So there are ways around that. Biology is not destiny in the same way that demography is not destiny. So of course conscious of the constrained and thats why this is a good question. But i think we should look for ways to reduce how binding that counseling is. How can the potential for crossgenerational efforts to close opportunity gaps and boost skill building, skill building, counter the decline in Youth Labor Force participation since the 1960s, a trend thats likely to be worsened by automation. Yeah, so automation here, robotics, a. I. Is the big unknown. Yet as to what you know effective will have, im convinced that will change the way in which we do our jobs more than replace human beings entirely. Right. Im convinced about that. At least for the next 20 or 30 years. Right. But you know, this dynamic or this argument that young people that if older stay working, then young people are never going to have as many opportunities. I think that assumes a very static view of the economy. And you see, the economy is always transforming itself. I always tell my students the jobs that youre going to have in ten years from now have not yet been invented. Right. And its completely true. So we need to adopt, i think, a more dynamic view of things, right . Because things are changing very fast out there in regard to the workplace. There is systemic bias against older employees. Yeah. What changes do you recommend to encourage employers to hire older employees or do you recommend that older employees prepare differently for todays jobs . Well, i think both things will be important. I think the second point is really important because were earlier referring to that women aged 68 or 69 who just didnt think thats who was employable. So we also need to change that mindset. A lot of people as they approach age 60 or 70 or even 80, they think they know longer are good for the labor market. We also need to change that right . But i think it all begins with the law and enforcing the law and there is non age in this country and we should enforce that. But a boss can always say. Oh, it wasnt their age. Yeah, absolutely. You know, this other one, we have unconscious biases also, right . Absolutely. We do need to get rid of all of those things that stand in the way of fully utilizing the talents of beyond the age of 60 or 70, if they wish to continue working. So im not saying that people shouldnt retire, but if people want to continue working, we should give them the opportunity to do so. Do we have to recognize that there are different kinds of jobs if you were somebody who work with your brains for 40 years as opposed to working with you back for 40 years, you know, you may be more ready to continue working and, you know, one of the great, terrible scourges across the country now is untreated chronic pain in late middle age and elderly men who lifted up and bang things against things for much of their working lives. And now are just in tremendous pain that is not being properly know. Absolutely. And thats why 120 years ago, we invented pensions because pretty much everybody who was in the labor force was performing those kinds of tasks. And something had to be done about that. But thats no longer the case. A construction worker can become a Quality Control person right at a company so what we need to do is retrain those people who because of their physical work, manual work, theyre no longer be able to work in their line of business right beyond, lets say, in some cases age 40. But we should have in place to help them, you know, pursue another occupation to help them reinvent themselves. And its already happening right to a certain extent, but we need to systematize that. What will be the impact of remote work on the entire age cohort, Knowledge Transfer and mentoring . Do you think remote work will persist . Thats a its a great question. Given where we are right now, especially having this conversation in San Francisco where remote work has had a tremendous impact on this downtown, where weve had a negative impact, i think were going into a future hybrid work, and i think thats going to be a godsend for people over the age of 50 or 60 or 70, because one of the things that people at that age hate the most is commuting, right . So they may be enjoying the work, but they dont really want to commute mean its a stressful and so on so on and theyve done it for 30 years. So i think these hybrid ways of working now are going to be particularly good for people above a certain age. Thats why i say, you know, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the future right now belongs to people above the age of 60, not to the young. We always say the people. The future belongs to the young. I think actually the way things are shifting now, i would strongly argue that the future belongs to people above the age of 60 or 70, but that that skills transfer, that ideas transfer that you extoll in the book, isnt it harder to do when everybodys at home and not seeing each other face to face . Oh, absolutely. We still dont know to what extent this is going to undermine morale. Organizational cultures, all of these things. Its been short, right . We have only two or three years worth of experience of people massively working from the home. This is going to be a lot of unintended consequences of these. So we need to wait a little bit and then make adjustments. But thats why i was, you know, extolling, as you say, hybrid work as opposed to pure remote work. I think the future should be hybrid work. And by the way, its also very good for the environment because weve got an epidemic of loneliness in this dangerous loneliness left loneliness that encourages people to abuse substances, kill themselves and so on. Absolutely. And if youre working longer, but also in a more solitary manner, thats not addressing the loneliness thats making. Not at all. Absolutely. Thats why i think hybrid work should be the future. Not remote work. Not 100 remote work. What do you think of the finland design learning model of education that encourages individual pursuits of interest . So im not 100 familiar with the finnish model, but there are several countries in the world, including finland, that have been very creative about helping people access education, access, learning, you know, at different stages in life for different reasons, even just for the sake of learning new things, not necessarily to you be employable. And i think thats absolutely the way to go. We are human beings. We love learning. We have we love socializing. As you just argued. We have taken that away from people above a certain age learning. We have taken it away from people about the age of 20, really, or five, because we make it really hard for people above that age to go back into learning mode that is not what human beings are all about. We have to change that. The ability to continue training and pivot more generally is, largely economic. How do we avoid only speaking to the haves and not the have nots and when carrying massive student debt, is it harder to take the career and Economic Risks that lead to greater rewards . Pivoting to a new job or going back to school . What impact does economic burden can have on peoples ability to follow your guidance . This this is a great question and look, i think its very clear, although i work for an Ivy League Institution, that there are known Ivy League Universities and colleges that give you pretty much exactly the same quality education. Right. Than an Ivy League Institution at a much lower price. Right. So youre absolutely right. The fact that some people are carrying these amounts of student debt makes them then want to work and save money and pay down debt. Right. So this is not working for them. Its not working for the country. We need to change that. We need either more scholarships or we need more people to decide that they shouldnt go into so much debt that is other cheaper options, cheaper in the sense of lower price, not, you know, lower quality in terms of higher education. That will also get them the career that they want. So this is this is really important. I am glad that this person has that. Its a great question. And that the risk aversion part of it, i think is credit solidly because in other countries you dont have people just burdened throughout their adult universities, free, right . Yeah, but university is also free here. If you have a Good University in your state, its not free, but its definitely less expensive than a private Ivy League Institution. And people dont realize that you were telling me earlier that you went to university of virginia. Its a wonderful university. Its actually, you know, at the leading edge in several disciplines in the world. But most people would say, oh, id rather go to an ivy league if i can afford it. Right, or if i can get in. But then you will end your education. You know, youre 23 years old and youll have, whatever, half a Million Dollars in debt, right . Some of people, two or 100,000 at least. Right. Are there countries or societies today that are moving toward vision of a post generational society . And are there others are far behind . I dont think any country in the world right now is excelling at, you know, going down this path that i outlined in the book in terms of the push generation society. But what we do have we do see in every country in the world these people who are going that path, individuals who like this ballet dancer that i told you about earlier, have decided to embrace this way of thinking about life. This is not necessarily, you know, that you follow these stages. So thats where the challenge lies. And you being asking me about this repeatedly throughout the night, which is without the evening, which is how do we make it from point a to point b . Thats the real challenge. But we have individuals, brave individuals who are doing it. But how do we move society as a whole in that direction . That is a problem. That is a challenge. Well, that sends a strong signal when they see other people doing it. It sends a strong signal to individuals about their own decision making. And if it looks like its just too big a risk, they wont do it. They wont do it. Absolutely. Because the system right now is biased in that direction. Right. And we were talking about Government Policies or laws and regulations earlier. We need to change those so that the incentive is for people to take more risks. Absolutely. Do you have a powerpoint or bullet list of needed federal policy changes that would move us toward a better chance of creating a post generational society . D after all, youre a professor of management at the Wharton School and the risks of failure with the next president ial actions in 2024 are real. Yeah, well, there is such a list in the last six or seven pages of the book and it needs to be expanded. I agree. So maybe thats a subject for for another another book. But heres the important thing. The important thing is know im trying with this installment, right, of this idea to help people change their mindset. Right, to think in a radically different way about how we live our lives. Thats thats the goal of the book. And i do have details as to what we should be doing. But its not the primary thrust in the book. Right. But inevitably, polity books are going to get involved one way or the year. And if youve made earlier, you mentioned the disincentive for politicians. Tell us the truth about the state of play. Who is going to talk to us about where things really stand to create the social sentiment that move politicians . Well, i think it has to be people who, you know, think about these issues. They they do research on them. And i hope that if social activists theres a lot of organizations out there, nonprofits that are trying to put in place systems that i think would move us in this direction. Theres a lot of, you know, help groups that are trying to, you know, make some of those people in their fifties and sixties more employable. There are nonprofits that are helping younger people. Also get the skills that we need in this new Global Economy because schools are not doing it right for them. Yeah, but its the same as with immigration. So, you know, the immigration problem really well. I think we fundamentally misunderstand the benefits that we could get from immigration, but talk to the politicians that are exploiting it right. It has become a football in elections, right. Professor mauro guijin is a teacher at the Wharton School at the university of pennsylvania. He is the author of the perennials the megatrends creating a post generational society. Please thank professor gideon to. Now im pleased to introduce our speaker amber athey to discuss her new book, the snowflakes revolt how woke millennials