Will Global Aging Change the Rate of Technological Progress and Form a New Consumption Model?

Abstract

The article discusses how the pace of technological progress and economic model of society will change under the influence of global aging process. It tries to answer the following questions: What could be the driver of an acceleration of technological growth in the forthcoming decades? Is slowdown of technological growth likely to be observed afterwards? What could cause such a slow-down? How could this slowdown affect socioeconomic and sociopolitical relations? What is the relationship between global aging and technological progress? Why is global aging likely to be one of the most important factors affecting technological growth in the near future?

Keywords:

• consumerism
• forecasting
• global aging
• technological growth

There are grounds to expect that the global aging could have a dual and contradictory effect on technological progress: positive and negative. On the one hand, the need to improve the biological quality of life of the elderly, the struggle to increase life expectancy, the fight against incurable diseases, the need to extend the working age of the elderly, etc. spur science and technology to search for new breakthrough solutions. On the other hand, older people tend to be more conservative than the younger and middle-aged categories, leading to a slowdown in the rate of technological progress.

In this article, we analyze both of these trends and show how these trends and their relationship will affect the rate of technological progress in the 21st century. So, we obtain a nontrivial result, according to which the process of global aging can accelerate and change the direction of technological progress in the coming decades, and then the aging of society can slow down scientific-technological progress in the late 21st and early 22nd centuries.

However, slowdown does not mean a full stop. We argue that technological or economic development will hardly stop. It will be even unreasonable to let technological progress slow down too much. Otherwise, economic growth will critically slow down or stop, and then society can plunge into a crisis and slide into a rough distribution system. The other goal of this article is to show that one can assume that the current consumption pattern may also change under the influence of the global aging process. And this change, in turn, will have a serious impact on the entire production structure and on scientific-technological progress (as we will discuss further later).

The conservatism of the elderly may lead not only to a slowdown in development, but also to a transition to a different economic system. The current model is associated with an increasing consumption. Consume more today than yesterday, and tomorrow more than today, is largely an absurd model. Also, sometimes the desire for sustainable GDP growth seems absurd. However, it works and will work for decades, especially for poor countries whose populations are not satisfied with their level of consumption. Thus, aging can change people’s needs, especially in conditions of the stabilization of the population or its reduction. As a result, under the influence of all above mentioned future changes, the model that measures economic growth in GDP should be replaced. The modern consumption model will also change. Overall, the Cybernetic Revolution¹ and global aging should ultimately lead to the transition to a new economic model without an endless increase in consumption. In such case, the growth model in the economy should differ from today, it is likely to include some parameters of quality and longevity. Accordingly, business models may change, although it is not very clear how this will happen.

Global Aging and Technological Progress: Introduction

In this article the authors discuss the role of global aging as one of the main factors in both the technological acceleration and the subsequent deceleration. In the next decades this will be a period of significant growth in life expectancy and, accordingly (against the background of low fertility), a period of rapid global aging that will also involve regions that are still ‘young’, including sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (Grinin & Grinin, 2015b, 2016; Grinin, Grinin & Korotayev, 2017a; Grinin, Korotayev, & Tausch 2016; Grinin et al., 2017b). Aging and life expectancy is tightly connected with medicine’s innovations. The final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution is likely to begin in approximately the 2030s. The final phase of this revolution will become the epoch of ‘self-regulating systems’, may start in the sphere of medicine and will be connected with its innovative branches; this will lead to serious modification of human organism and, perhaps, change its biological nature (for more detail see Grinin & Grinin, 2015b, 2016; Grinin, Grinin, & Korotayev, 2017a; Grinin, Korotayev, & Tausch 2016). The drivers of the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution will be medical technologies, additive manufacturing (3D printers), nano- and bio-technologies, robotics, IT, and cognitive technologies (connected with AI) (MANBRIC system), which will combine to form a sophisticated system of self-regulating production. Among these, medical technologies will become the main integrating center (see Grinin & Grinin, 2015b, 2016, 2020; Grinin, Grinin, & Korotayev, 2017a; Grinin & Korotayev, 2016a, 2016b; Grinin, Korotayev, & Tausch 2016).

Thus, generally speaking, we have to recognize that developing of aging process, including ‘healthy aging’, growth of biological life quality and life expectancy are interconnected with technological progress and its rate. This article is dedicated to this subject. It is continuing the discussion on the ways and role of the global aging and will be connected with the following research questions: What could be the driver of an acceleration of technological growth in the forthcoming decades? Is a slowdown of technological growth likely to be observed afterwards? What could cause such a slowdown? How could such a slowdown affect socioeconomic and sociopolitical relations? What is the relationship between global aging and technological progress? Why is global aging likely to be one of the most important factors affecting technological growth in the near future?

These are very important questions themselves but their importance becomes even higher because the impact of global aging on the speed and direction of scientific-technological progress is understudied (cf. Barsukov, 2019; Bös & von Weizsäcker, 1989; De Grey & Rae 2008; Galor & Weil, 2000; Peterson, 1999; Prettner, 2013; Tsirel, 2008; WHO – World Health Organization, 2017),² whereas global aging affects technological, economic, political, social and other spheres in various ways and it influence have serious macroeconomic consequences (Barsukov, 2019; Coleman & Rowthorn, 2015; Fukuyama, 2002; Goldstone, 2015; Goldstone, 2015; Goldstone et al., 2015; Haas, 2015; Harper, 2006; Hsu & Lo, 2019; Lee & Mason, 2011; Park & Shin, 2015; Park & Shin, 2015; Powell & Khan, 2013; Zimmer, 2016; Zimmer, 2016).

The problem of this article, however, is connected not only with the consequences of global aging but essentially with the identification of mechanisms of complex interaction between the aging and technological progress. The very consequences might appear in new light if we understand the abovementioned connections with their positive and negative feedbacks. So, the problem is very important.

In this article one of goals of our research is to present a correlation between growth of aging, i.e. the rate of change in the population age structure, with the development of future technologies. We obtain a nontrivial result, according to which the process of global aging can accelerate and change the direction of technological progress in the coming decades, and then the aging of society can slow down scientific-technological progress in the late 21st and early 22nd centuries.

The other goal is to show that one can assume that the current consumption pattern may also change under the influence of the global aging process. And this change, in turn, will have a serious impact on the entire production structure and on scientific-technological progress (as we will discuss further later).

On Conservatism of the Elderly

Is Conservatism Negative or Positive Quality?

Conservatism is often spoken of as immanent in an older society (see in particular Lambert-Pandraud & Laurent, 2010; Phua et al., 2020; Tsirel, 2008; see pro and cons Glenn, 1974; Peterson et al., 2020).³ It is a sort of conventional or folk wisdom that certain dimensions of biological, social and psychological aging contribute to some kind of conservatism (Glenn, 1974; Peterson et al., 2020). In many aspects we agree with this statement with mentioned below limitations although there are many contradictions and empirical evidence as before is not definitive (Glenn, 1974) as it was fifty years ago. It is important that this quality will influence a lot of things. We note, by the way, that both the media and their ideological orientation in terms of condemning or approving conservatism can change significantly.

One of the reasons that empirical evidence is not definitive, in our opinion, is that the concept of conservatism is explicitly, and more often implicitly, invested with a negative connotation. That is, conservatism is considered as a non-positive quality. Therefore, in many studies, authors resort to euphemisms to indicate conservatism, but call it differently so as not to offend this age group. For example, researchers note that elderly consumers tend to be more cautious in making decisions (Phillips & Sternthal, 1977); mature consumers are more conscious about the risk associated with the purchase decisions (Dychtwald & Gable, 1990); they identify such features of the elderly consumers as innovation/technology resistance (Bae et al., 2021; Gilly & Zeithaml, 1985; Hough & Kobylanski, 2009). Below we present a number of such examples. In the present context, we do not attach any evaluative meaning to the concept of conservatism, we just would like to emphasize that the elderly and old people are more committed to the prevailing stereotypes in their lifestyle and habits, respectively, they are less prone to change than the young and middle-aged groups. These habits and stereotypes are also all the less prone to drastic changes in their lives and to some kind of risky actions.⁴ Aging persons may become more conservative in the sense that their attitudes and values become more resistant to change (Glenn, 1974: 176).

It should be borne in mind that, firstly, we are talking about a greater or lesser prevalence of relevant qualities in large population groups, which cannot be automatically transferred to specific people (their conservatism or desire for change at any age may depend on personal qualities and circumstances). Secondly, such adherence to habits and stereotypes in lifestyle in different situations can be considered differently, that is, as a positive, neutral or negative quality, therefore there is no and cannot be a single assessment. Thirdly, what has been said about conservatism to a lesser extent can be connected with political predilections, and even more so with possible assessments of the situation.⁵ Fourth, it is important to keep in mind that the increase in life expectancy changes the perception of the qualities of people of a certain age. There is apparently less conservatism among sixty-year-olds today than it was thirty years ago. And this is some guarantee that the conservatism of the elderly will not become an absolute brake. Fifth, we do not claim that older people are absolutely conservative, there may be situations and areas where this is not the case. For instant, in areas such as medicine and pharmaceuticals, older people may tend to innovate more often than young people. This is an important point, we will elaborate on it in the next section. There are studies whose authors claim that the change for cohorts in later stages of life (aged 60 and older) is going to be greater than that for cohorts in earlier stages (Danigelis et al., 2007). However, this may be true only for some narrow areas.

Youth and Elderly’s Differences and Economic Growth

However at a whole, it would be wrong to deny that the physiology, freshness of perception and energy, opportunity for imitation, flexibility of memory and body in young and old people differ greatly as well as the psychology of older people is different from the psychology of young people. The mental abilities of the elderly, as well as the ability to learn and adapt to change, if they are healthy, may in some respects be as good as that of the young. However, objectively, the memory of young people is more active, stronger and more adaptive to information. All this affects the different effectiveness of teaching the young and the elderly.⁶ In general, acquiring new skills is more difficult for older people than for young people.

As a result, the aging of the labor force objectively leads to a slowdown in economic growth. In addition, older people are generally less productive than young people – e.g., people aged 40–65 compared to workers aged 20–40 (Goldstone, 2015), whose productivity tends to increase rapidly with increasing experience and education (Lee & Mason, 2011),⁷ not to mention people older than 65. In general, aging of the workforce impedes both the introduction of innovations and workforce re-training, and opportunities for increasing labor productivity. It also reduces the mobility of labor force.⁸ There is a negative impact of aging on economic growth rates caused by its diverse impact on society, in particular, due to a sharp reduction in the number of hours worked (Goldstone, 2015; see also Grinin, Grinin, & Korotayev, 2020).

As for consumerism, older people who have already acquired, experienced and seen a lot, have largely lost their desire to pursue new things and become less active than the young. The current situation in the Japanese economy, where the proportion of the elderly is growing, and the proportion of the young is decreasing, confirms this fact. This demographic structure of the population cannot contribute to noticeable economic growth. The Japanese economy has suffered from a weak period of GDP growth, with two and a half decades of deflation due to an aging population that does not want to spend much money and prefers to save instead. No wonder Japan’s mood is rather depressed (Coleman & Rowthorn, 2015: 31; Coulmas, 2007; Grinin & Korotayev, 2014, 2017, 2018; Ogawa et al., 2005).⁹

Conservatism and Its Impact on Innovation and Consumption

It is important to emphasize that in this article we do not set ourselves the task of analyzing the manifestations or non-manifestations of conservatism in the elderly and old in all aspects. Our study focuses on narrower aspects: the desire for technological innovation and consumption of new goods, and adaptability to them.

In this regard, the following can be argued:

• An increase in the proportion of older people in the number of employees objectively leads to a slowdown in economic growth and its innovative development. As a result of, the activity of a very large part of the employees, their creative potential, is likely to be reduced compared to today and, even more so, a period of 20-30 years earlier.

• From the point of view of adaptation to technological progress, in the pursuit of changes and the rate of acquisition of new skills, older people are much less adept than their younger counterparts.

• Young people are more eager for change than older people, because the latter in general have less needs and a desire for innovations than young people. If it were the other way around, society would have ceased its development long ago.

• The growth of conservatism in aging society is also connected to the fact that young people are not dominated by their life experience, they look at many things with different eyes, and are generally more ready for change. Of course, a strong need also forces older people to change, but one way or another, an increase in the cohorts of older people leads to these phenomena.

• There is a slowing consumption in an older society, the need for career growth, well-being and success. All these factors, that were and still are the most important engine of development, fade away and will fade away. With a decrease in the number of children, investments in the younger generation and the need for their provision, another important factor for development, will begin to weaken.

We will continue this analysis in the following sections, since, paradoxically, aging can have not only a negative, but also very positive effect on technological progress.

Global Aging as a Factor Influencing the Technological Growth Rate

Aging and Technological Progress: A Positive Feedback

Earlier, we have already shown why the global aging will be one of the most important factors in the coming decades (Grinin, Grinin & Korotayev, 2017a; see also Grinin & Grinin, 2015b, 2015c, 2017; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015b, 2015c, 2015d, 2015e, 2016a, 2016b).

In this subsection, we will look at how and why global aging in the coming decades could become one of the most important drivers of technological breakthroughs through the 2070–2080s. In the next subsection, we will discuss why global aging will later become an obstacle to technological progress.

As we expect, a new technological breakthrough will begin around the 2030s, starting in new branches of medicine and related areas: bio- and nano-technologies, additive and cognitive technologies, and some others. It will also mark the beginning of the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution. For the start of such breakthroughs to take place in the 2030s in the sphere of new medicine, the world will have the following prerequisites: the explosive growth of the elderly portion of the population; a growing economy’s need for labor resources and the state’s interest in increasing the working capacity of older people, as well as a growing number of well-to-do and educated people concerned about their health. Huge financial resources will also be accumulated for technological breakthroughs: pension funds, which will increase at a rapid pace; government funding directed to health and social needs; increased spending on health from an aging population and a growing world middle class. All of these resources can provide high investment attractiveness to various venture capital projects, and, in the long term, a very wide demand for innovative medical technologies.

We also noted above that the MANBRIC complex will be formed in the process of the Cybernetic Revolution, and new medical technologies will play an integrating role. This will have a double effect: on the one hand it will affect the growth of life expectancy, its physiological quality, and increase the age limit on physical activity. On the other hand, the problem of the explosive growth of the number of older people will become more acute, especially because of growth of pension costs and labor shortages. As has been already mentioned, to support an increasing number of elderly people, an increase in the working age ceiling will be required due to an increase in working capacity by 10–20 years and a more complete involvement of people with disabilities in the labor process due to new technical means and medical advances.

In fact, in the coming decades, aging societies in developed and less developed countries (like China, Russia, etc.) will face an existential problem: either raise the retirement age for aging cohorts or doom pensioners to an existence that will be little compatible with the possibilities of increasing life expectancy.¹⁰ A pension crisis is almost inevitable in the face of a shrinking working population and a slowdown in economic growth. The normal way out of this situation may be the development of medicine to a state that will increase the working age and at the same time develop labor-saving and labor-replacing technologies that can, firstly, reduce the shortage of labor, and secondly, reduce labor costs. spending caring for the elderly and sick. But this is possible only with the acceleration of technological progress for a sufficiently long time. Another option looks rather inhumane – to deprive the aging population of sufficient for a normal and healthy existence, cut pensions, develop instead of treating the elderly patients the institution of euthanasia (already actively developing in some countries, like Canada), in a word, in every possible way "fight" for reducing life expectancy in order to remove financial problems from the state. Here, “by the way,” new pandemics are constantly predicted. But the realization of such a negative scenario will testify to a deep crisis in the society that will allow it. We hope that it does not materialize. Moreover, the elderly are a very large group of voters. And although the possibility of such a negative scenario should by no means be ignored, we still do not consider it here.

With the development of a positive scenario, medical technologies will rapidly develop under the influence of an aging population (Phillips, 2011), and this will expand the search for opportunities to create “smart”, self-regulating systems, including robots, which can largely replace human labor, especially in the service sector, including complex services (e.g., in the fields of elder care, education, medicine, etc.) (DeCanio, 2016; Frey & Osborne, 2017).¹¹

Thus, until the last third of our century, the aging of the population will not impede technological and other development. On the contrary, the process of global aging itself will be the driving force of change, reform and acceleration of technological innovation.

Global Aging and Technological Progress in the Last Third of the 21st Century and the Early 22nd Century: A Possible Negative Feedback

This period corresponds to the fifth and sixth phases (2070^th–2090^th), when there will be numerous changes. In particular, a growing number of social self-regulating systems will mostly operate autonomously, regulating the behavior of large numbers of people in certain situations. They can be used to create positive or negative behavioral stimuli (carrot and stick method) to regulate human behavi. But especially great impulses will be introduced by the process of global aging, which by this time will engulf all countries of the world. We believe that under influence of aging and the increasing level of complexity of self-regulating systems will begin the transition to a new economic system (see below). Concerning to the link between global aging and technological progress it is worth to repeat that this is non-linear. At some point, the positive feedback we have mentioned above is likely to be replaced by negative feedback. Why? It is important to note that older people are more conservative. Above we formulate the reasons why this is not just a popular belief, but a fact confirmed by rigorous scientific research.

It is important take into consideration that the global aging will have a dual and contradictory effect on technological progress: positive and negative. On the one hand, the need to improve the biological quality of life of the elderly, the struggle to increase life expectancy, the fight against incurable diseases, the need to extend the working age of the elderly, etc. spur science and technology to search for new breakthrough solutions. Moreover, the growth of financial flows and interests, which are influenced by the elderly and old people, is and will continue. On the other hand, old people are prone to conservatism both in terms of physiological properties, and in terms of worldview, and in terms of cognitive features (see above). In addition, they already have a lot and therefore they do not need many fundamental expenses (housing, furnishings, equipment, etc.) that are necessary for younger people. All this has a negative impact on technological progress, slows it down.

Thus, both tendencies operate simultaneously. This is quite explicable, because within an elderly society progress and conservatism are combined in different ways. The conservatism of the elderly can be combined with the continuation of the trend toward technological progress using the example of a future self-governing supersystem - the techno-medico-biological system. We assume that in order to maintain healthy aging and longevity, a special techno-medical-biological environment would be required, in which an increasing part of the population would spend an ever longer time. This supersystem will constantly monitor the state of health, control all the most important physiological and psychological processes and give prescriptions.¹² The formation of such techno-medico-biological system should come to life precisely through technological development. That this is in itself a powerful source of development. At the same time, this system will contribute to maintaining stabilityhabitual way of life of the elderly.

So, these multidirectional trends do not disappear, they continue and will continue to influence technological progress. That is, we can speak here about the unity and struggle of opposites. However, until the last third of the 21st century, as we believe, the first, positive trend will prevail, respectively, aging in general will affect the acceleration of technological progress positively. However, this trend will weaken due to the increase in the proportion of the elderly, and, accordingly, the trend toward conservatism will increase until it becomes predominant. That is why in the mature phases of the scientific-cybernetic production principle, aging will turn into a factor that will start to slow down the scientific and technological progress. However, the slowdown doesn’t mean the stop (see below).

What factors will strengthen the second trend - conservatism?

1. This is a change in the age structure of the population. For example, according to some studies, an increase in the share of the elderly (60+) in the total population by 1 percentage point tends to be accompanied by decreases of the growth rate of per capita GDP, the share of investment in GDP, the rate of personal savings, the number of hours worked, respectively, by −0.14; −0.20; −0.59; −0.89 percentage points. And the inflation rate increases by 0.17 percentage points.

2. Stabilization of the population in the World System as a whole by the end of the 21st century (either a slight increase or some reduction in the population is possible).¹³ This will greatly reduce the opportunities for economic growth and, accordingly, innovation. It is very important as throughout human history, population growth has been the most important driver of technological development (Aghion & Howitt, 1998; Boserup, 1965; Dolgonosov, 2016; Fomin, 2020; Grinin 2006, 2009; Grinin & Grinin, 2015a, 2016, 2017; Grossman & Helpman, 1991; Jones, 2005; Kapitza, 1996; Korotayev, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2013, 2018, 2020; Korotayev & Markov, 2015; Korotayev et al., 2006b; Kuznets, 1960; LePoire & Korotayev, 2020; Simon, 2000; Turchin et al., 2021).

3. The situation when technology will be able to solve a number of important problems that have driven technology in previous decades, together with the movement toward greater orderliness of development and regulation of life, will reduce the sources of further growth. As a result of the above described processes, society will become much more orderly, hence the stochastic moments will play a smaller role, a different development algorithm will begin to form, which will be associated with greater forecasting capabilities and smaller scales of fluctuations, but also with a slower movement.

Thus, it is possible that the aging of society, with the end of global population growth and improved social planning capabilities, will contribute to the transition of global society to a more comfortable and slow development (the so-called sustainable development, which is much discussed) by the end of this century or in the early 22nd century. Of course, other scenarios are also possible –for example, in the case of a climate deterioration, some societal degradation may also occur.

However, we argue that technological or economic development will hardly stop. We speak about a slowdown of the innovation process in terms of the emergence of radically and fast new technological breakthroughs. But on the other hand, those innovations that were created in the previous decades during a powerful stream will be very widely implemented with noticeable improvements and modifications. There will also emerge a lot of upgrading inventions. But at the same time, a lot of problems will emerge and for which there will be found solutions in terms of adapting these inventions to the societal life, to rights and freedoms, to people’s free will, especially free will of the elderly.

Transition to a New Economic Model

Thus, the abovementioned conservatism of the elderly may lead to a slowdown in technological and economic development. However, it also to a transition to another economic system. This is a main subject of the section.

The current model is associated with an increasing consumption. Consume more today than yesterday, and tomorrow more than today, is largely an absurd model. The desire for endless exponential GDP growth seems absurd. However, it works and will work for decades, especially for poor countries whose populations are not satisfied with their level of consumption.

In any case, the modern economy can only grow if the necessity and importance of ever greater consumption is strengthened into people’s minds. This creates a dead end: you cannot increase consumption all the time, but without economic growth, society stagnates. However, the directions of development can and should be gradually changed, maintaining the pace of economic growth and at the same time eliminating the most odious things and injustice.

Much has been said about endless and senseless consumption, about consumerism, about the lack of spirituality associated with this, about the decline in the level of culture, etc. And it was rightly said, but it was not possible to resolve this contradiction. To solve social problems, economic growth is needed, otherwise the volume of resources is compressed and it has to be rationed. And for economic growth, demand is needed, which is supported by an increase in consumption. And, by the way, it is supported by advertising, which also causes harm, but without which it is difficult, if not impossible, to promote goods in a consumer society. It is possible and even necessary to act in terms of minimizing the harm from such institutions of a market society, but only by carefully channeling the directions of development and gradually changing priorities. Thus, unfortunately, so far and for the next, at least two decades, it will not be possible to radically change the model of consumption in the modern economy and society, if only due to direct restrictions, bans and regulations (such ideas are popular enough). It is especially hard that most of humankind does not consume sufficiently and it takes decades to achieve a satisfactory living standard for these billions of people. However, it is possible to prepare society and business for such a change, but only by avoiding drastic actions that, instead of good, will bring great harm and a drop in the real standard of living. Especially considering that most countries of the world are still very far from the level of consumption normal in the first world.

As for the modern economy, our position is that, to a certain level, the correction of senseless growth, the race for prestigious consumer goods, the morally and legally unlimited desire for profit is very useful. Also very desirable is a moderate movement toward a better system of distribution in a society in which inequality has become excessive. This will only improve the society and give it an impetus for further development.

But, we would stress this again, such limitation and self-restraint, sewerage and redistribution are useful only up to a certain level, the excess of which will cause more harm than good. Where such a level is situated is a very important question, but it is rather not ideological, but empirical, established in the course of a cautious socio-political experiments.

However, the main idea of this article is that in the long term, the problem of reducing consumerism does not take into account the role of the aging process of society. Meanwhile, this process can greatly transform the consumption model.

It makes sense to point out that since the second half of the 20th century, especially since the 1970s, older consumers and buyers began to be actively studied; the elderly as consumers became an object of a special interest (Abdel-Ghany & Sharpe, 1997; Berg & Liljedal, 2022; Boyd Thomas & Lee Okleshen Peters, 2009; Drolet et al., 2007; Ensley & Pride, 1991; Fregolente et al., 2019; Goldberg, 2009; Goldstein, 1968; Halwani, 2021; Ilicic et al., 2016; John & Cole, 1986; Kang & Ridgway, 1996; Linden, 1976; Meneely et al., 2009; Nunan & Di Domenico, 2019; Oates et al., 1996; Phillips & Sternthal, 1977; Reisenwitz & Wimbish, 1997; Schewe, 1988; Towle & Martin, 1976; Williams & Drolet, 2005; Yoon et al., 2009). For example, in 1990 Dychtwald and Gable (1990) maintain: “The clear and unmistakable implication is that business is about to face a larger, more powerful mass of mature consumers as we enter the 1990s and beyond” (p. 62). In 2013, the situation has already become quite clear. In the Western societies aging consumers will be the dominant consumer segment and a new and challenging business opportunity for retailers in the near future (Kohijoki & Marjanen, 2013). Elderly buyers have their own characteristics, they are more cautious and conservative. Sheau-Fen et al. (2012: 52) note: “In line with Phillips and Sternthal (1977) argument that elderly consumers tend to be more cautious in making decisions, Srinivasan and Ratchford (1991) found age to be positively related to perceived risk in the purchase of new automobiles. Dychtwald and Gable (1990) note that mature consumers are more conscious about the risk associated with the purchase decisions they make due to the psychological difference between the younger and older age groups. Simcock et al. (2006) and Laforet (2008) took this view further by examining the impact of age on several risk perceptions”. Similar conclusions have been arrived at by many other researchers who note such features of the elderly consumers as innovation/technology resistance (Bae et al., 2021; Gilly & Zeithaml, 1985; Hough & Kobylanski, 2009), conservatism (Lambert-Pandraud & Laurent, 2010; Phua et al., 2020), risk aversion (Reisenwitz et al., 2007), and technology anxiety (Berg & Liljedal, 2022; Chaouali & Souiden, 2019; Meuter et al., 2003).

Indeed, aging can change people’s needs, especially in conditions of the stabilization of the population or its reduction. As a result, under the influence of all above mentioned future changes, the model measuring economic growth in GDP should be replaced (Coleman & Rowthorn, 2015: 37). The modern consumption model will also change.

Transformation of the modern consumption economic model will be a complex process that may change many important aspects of our life. Above, we mentioned Japan as an example of an aging society. It also provides an example of development without GDP growth alongside scientific and technological development. The ‘Japanese disease’ had been recently spreading to European countries (before 2021), partly due to the aging of their populations (there are other reasons as well, although we do not address them in this article; for more detail see Grinin & Korotayev, 2014, 2017, 2018).

Overall, the Cybernetic Revolution and aging should ultimately transition society into a new economic model without an endless increase in consumption. In such a case, the growth model in the economy should differ from that of today; it is likely to include some parameters of quality and longevity. Accordingly, business models may change, although it is not very clear how this will happen.

Some contribution to the decrease of consumerism might be made by the proliferation of the Sun City type settlements for the elderly. We do not rule out that there are prospects for such an institution. Such settlements contribute to the formation of the necessary institutions and the involvement of older people in active life, although age segregation also has negative sides, such as separating the elderly population from the mainstream of life and strengthening its conservatism (see, e.g., Asadzadeh et al., 2022).

As a result of the adaptation to aging, the society should significantly change the distribution precisely in the direction of increasing the share of benefits and funds allocated to the elderly and the disabled. Adaptation to aging and disability, creation of an appropriate techno-biological environment, health monitoring, treatment, care, etc. – all these aspects are very expensive. Thus, such a transition to this trend has actually started, still it proceeds with difficulty. Any change in distribution is a conflictive and complicated matter fraught with strong fluctuations. It is worth to take into consideration that the matter is not only in the pension system, but in the general revision of the ideology of public spending, which should eventually be expressed in institutionalized ageism.

Concerning the accumulation, on the one hand, in order to support an ever-growing number of elderly people, the society needs to increase savings for the future. It is precisely the scarcity of savings that poses one of the main threats (in addition to the reduction of labor pool and absent mechanisms for secure savings) for the pension system of an aging society. On the other hand, the system is developing in such a way that relations will gradually require people to save less at the expense of non-market and social support systems (this is driven by aging). Already today, the ideology of rejecting possession in favor of rented things (the so-called ‘sharing’) has started to quickly spread. But currently it has rather ideological and political roots, reflecting the interests of certain power strata. Hence, the desire for a rapid implementation of this trend seems extremely dangerous. Yet, in the future, these processes will be intensively supported by global aging, since from a certain age people are less inclined to saving.

It is also important to note that the development of societies within the framework of unfolding cybernetic production principle toward higher degree of planning will also contribute to reducing consumerism (due to the spread of self-regulating systems [Grinin, Grinin, Korotayev 2021]). An increasing part of planning also brings more restrictions for people, and here the compromises are needed since conflicts are inevitable. The market mechanisms will shrink due to increasing planning and growing share of public goods in the overall system of distribution and consumption, and other factors, in particular, due to the possible guaranteed income in society. But it is extremely dangerous to make haste of burying capitalism, the market, and so on; their important role will preserve for a long time and is unlikely to ever disappear (Grinin, Malkov et al. 2022).

So, we suggest that the late 21st century and early 22nd century will be decisive for human civilization. Fundamentally new socio-economical relationships will begin to emerge, the outlines of which are not yet clear. As a result, the modern consumption model will start to change dramatically. We have offered some ideas about possible reasons and trends for such transformations. However, this subject demands much more scrupulous research.

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Additional information

Funding

This article has been prepared with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 23-11-00160).

Notes

1 Cybernetic Revolution is a fundamental transition from the trade-industrial production principle to the production and service sector based on the implementation of self-regulating systems. This revolution started in the 1950s and 1960s and brought the development of powerful information technologies. Between the 2030s and 2070s the final phase of this revolution is likely to unfold which will dramatically increase the opportunities of control over some essential technical, biological, ecological, and even social systems which will be transformed into smart and independently working self-regulating systems (for detail see Grinin & Grinin 2015a, 2016, 2020; Grinin et al., 2017b).

2 See also Grinin & Grinin, 2016, 2017; Grinin, Grinin & Korotayev, 2017a, 2020; Grinin & Korotayev, 2016a, 2016b).

3 See also Grinin & Grinin, 2017; Korotayev & Shulgin, 2018; Korotayev et al., 2017, 2023; Shulgin et al., 2019.

4 However, old people can and often do such actions when they feel that life is over and they can become a burden for relatives. Isn’t this the reason for such difficult decisions as transferring your property to your relatives during your lifetime, or, even more so, deciding on euthanasia?

5 Nevertheless, Peterson et al., 2020 write: “we also find support for folk wisdom: on those occasions when political attitudes do shift across the life span, liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, suggesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even as it overstates the degree of change”.

6 A good example is the study of foreign languages. It is well known that children and teenagers learn foreign languages more easily than elderly people.

7 According to other research, labor productivity peaks between the ages of 35 and 54 (Park & Shin, 2015: 109).

8 Although the impact of the increasing aging of the workforce can be positive in certain aspects (due to their greater experience and matching with jobs).

9 In 2022, deflationary processes were replaced by inflationary ones under the influence of global processes.

10 Of course, raising the retirement age is a very painful social issue around which there will be hot conflicts. The events of 2023 in France illustrate this well. However, in a society where women do not want to give birth, there is no other option yet. The problem of pension provision will capture more and more new societies.

11 It is not possible to consider within this article the effects of global aging and increasing labor shortages (Grinin & Korotayev, 2016a; Grinin et al., 2017a, 2017b). Of course, in the process of development of the scientific-cybernetic production principle, there will be significant changes in the number of people employed in various professions, as well as major changes in the professional nomenclature; some of these professions will begin to disappear under the influence of new technologies (including new chats and robotization). In our opinion, unqualified services will be particularly at risk. At the same time, the sphere of qualified and highly qualified services will undergo considerable transformations (see Grinin & Grinin, 2015c for more detail). But, as a result of the rapid aging of the population, we expect that the total amount of labor resources will decrease faster (at least initially) than the technological progress of MANBRIC technologies will cut jobs (see Grinin & Grinin, 2015c; Grinin & Korotayev, 2016a; Grinin et al., 2017a, 2017b).

12 Just as many hundreds of millions of people cannot live without lifelong drugs, so in the future a huge part of population will be unable to stay outside this techno-medical environment for a long time. This system implies not only a breakthrough in medical technologies but also a powerful breakthrough in care technologies, continuous monitoring of the condition of people (not only of the elderly and disabled), control, remote medicine, psychological assistance, prediction, prescriptions and urgent care. But along with increasing duration and comfort of biological life, this, of course, will bring a lot of dangers and problems, which we discuss in detail in the present article.

13 In the meantime, many countries, which now have small natural growth, will experience population decline (see UN Population Division, 2022b) while in societies where high birth rates are observed at present, i.e., in tropical African countries and a few countries of Asia (Grinin & Grinin, 2017; Korotayev & Zinkina 2014, 2015; Zinkina & Korotayev, 2014b) the population growth will be weak and society will also become more elderly.