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Many of the biggest changes in the next century, at least in the developed world, will be driven by the demographic tilt away from children and toward the elderly. A snapshot of a family gathering in 2050 will show lots of gray hair and not too many diapers. Even now, for the first time in history, the average American has more parents living than children. People age 65 and older, who constitute 11.3% of the U.S. population in 1980, will make up 22% of the country by 2050. Moreover, in the next three decades the number of Americans age 85 and older is expected to increase fivefold, to 15 million.
That growth will spur a boom in the development of retirement communities. Those catering to the affluent will be highly sought after by regional civic boosters. "I can envision countries competing for these luxury communities in the same way they used to compete for auto plants, because they are such wealth engines," says William Johnston, a fellow at the Hudson Institute. A new, economical form of elderly residence called "assisted housing" is likely to be popular as well. In these complexes, the elderly are supervised but allowed to live alone. "It's not like a nursing home," says Karen Wilson, whose company, Concepts Community Living, operates two such residences in Oregon. "These are places where older people can live independently and where their family can come and do their laundry, bathe them and even stay with them."
Some people in America will be unable, either emotionally or financially, to meet their family obligations. "We cannot be hopeful about their ability to preserve or create any kind of family structure, unless we step in to change their circumstances," says Margaret Mark, director of the Young & Rubicam Education Group. The worst victims may be children. "You may see kids trying to survive on the street," says Edward Cornish, president of the World Future Society in Bethesda, Maryland. "Think of Dickens' London. Worse, think of Brazil, where there are armies of children with no place to go."
New technology and social institutions will have to emerge to help the fractured families of the future. Some forecasters, like Mark, predict that in poorer neighborhoods, schools will become 24-hour family-support systems offering child care, quiet study places, a sanctuary for abused or neglected youngsters, even a place to sleep for those who need one. At the same time, government computers will be far more efficient about tracking the legal obligations of citizens. Parents who fail to meet child-support payments will find it hard to hide.
As corporations become more dependent on women workers and staffed by female executives at high levels, policies will become more accommodating toward families. Video-conferencing and other improvements in communications technology will make it easier for work to be done remotely from home, though it remains to be seen whether this would be truly a boon for family life. While work will be less tied to the office, it will also be more international and therefore more round-the-clock. Making a clear separation between work life and home life may actually become more difficult.