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Families

Insight into the Future of Families

 

 

Azmil Mohd Amin - Principal Analyst II di Malaysian Industry Government Group for High Technology

“The evolution of families is occurring across the globe, but it is being manifested in different ways. Trend in developed countries is mature; families have moved past the preeminence of extended and nuclear families and are now moving into a post-nuclear family phase. This is marked by more diversity in family structures and includes more singles living on their own or with friends for extended periods of time, same-sex partnerships and parents, blended families, and even people creating networks of friends to "replace" their families.

In developing world, the trend is less advanced and is enmeshed with the trends of rising middle classes and urbanization. In this region, the change is the result of falling fertility, the formation of nuclear families, and the moving away from extended families. These will increase as modernization and urbanization continue and as incomes in these regions rise. The trend towards single-person and female-headed households is emerging as well, often as a result of the male head of household leaving to find work away from home."
 

Dr Ben Finney - Anthropology Department of the University of Hawaii

“If our descendants spread far and wide though space, the forces of evolution now braked on Earth will be released once more. As they scatter through the Solar System and eventually across the gulf of light years to other star systems, our descendants will experience [the forces of rapid natural evolution].

Advances in genetic engineering may further accelerate the pace of [their] evolution. [Moreover] Human evolution in space will hardly be limited to the birth of one new species. ... There are innumerable environments out there providing countless niches to exploit, first by humans and then by the multitudinous descendant species. By expanding through space we will be embarking on an adventure that will spread an explosive speciation of intelligent life as far as technology or limits placed by any competing life forms originating elsewhere will allow. Could the radiation of evolving, intelligent life through space be the galactic destiny of this Earth creature we have called the exploring animal?"
 

Professor Charlie Lewis - an expert on family psychology from Lancaster University.

“The word 'flux' sums up the future of the family. We will see more single parent families and more families breaking up and re-forming. Change will become the norm, not the exception.

Technology is a double-edged sword for families. It can erode and reduce human interaction but, at the same time, technology is great at bringing people together - just look at mobile phone use within families."
 

Joel Kotkin - Authority on global, economic, political and social trends.

“A society that is increasingly single and childless is likely to be more concerned with serving current needs than addressing the future oriented requirements of children. Since older people vote more than younger ones, and children have no say at all, political power could shift towards non- childbearing people, at least in the short and medium term. We could tilt more into a ‘now’ society, geared towards consuming or recreating today, as opposed to nurturing and sacrificing for tomorrow."
 

Rian Shah - Managing partner strategy, OMD UK.

“The increasing presence of mobile and tablet devices within the household and adoption of a ‘stack and snack’ approach to how we consume media and content, has actually brought families back into the living room together."
 

Hans Moravec - Futurist and adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.

“In the late 20th century, the barriers of complexity that divided the engineers of inanimate matter from the breeders of living things have been crumbling. We are very near to the time when no essential human function will lack an artificial counterpart. In the future..., the human race itself [will be] swept away by the tide of cultural change, not to oblivion, but to a future that, from our vantage point, is best described by the word, 'supernatural.' The underlying theme is the maturation of our machines from the simple devices they still are, to entities as complex as ourselves, to something transcending everything we know, in whom we can take pride when they refer to themselves as our descendants."

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