When I get the blues about the state of the world, I ask myself whether good things are happening somewhere. If anything good happens it would be nice to take place in some part of the world that is left behind. Such a place is the war- and violence-torn Sub-Saharan region of Africa, home to 1.3 billion people or 15% of the world population. If there is progress there, then there is hope for the rest of the world.
So, I checked some statistics and this is what I found. Women’s literacy rate has improved from 47% of the adult female population in 2000 to 59% in 2025. Even better, literacy among young women ages 15 to 24 stands now at 75%. Infant mortality is now 50 per 1000 live births way down from 92 in 2000. As a result, life expectancy has risen from 50 years in 2000 to 63 in 2025. Also, the GDP per capita in constant purchasing power as of 2015 has gone up from $1,198 in 2000 to $1,589 in 2024. This economic progress has reduced the percentage of the population living in poverty (that is, under $3 per day) from 63% in 2000 to 45% in 2024.
These might sound like small steps in the right direction but in that part of the world they make the difference between tolerable and awful livelihoods, between female self-empowerment and dependency and between healthy and sick lives. Small steps but full of promises for a more humane future. Nonetheless, life is still miserable in that part of the world. So, we would expect that our much superior living conditions would let us live fulfilled lives. Well, not quite so.
For the last five presidential administrations, a bipartisan group that runs the State of the Nation Project has issued annual reports on the quality of life across the fifty states in the US. What the annual reports are finding is a national downward trend in self-reported quality of life. In a telling finding, youth depression places the US better than only 1% of other countries. Surveys show that while young Americans are optimistic about their personal lives they are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the direction of the country. Unlike previous generations, young men and women are giving up on marriage and wait until later in life to have children. Also, a rising percentage of young people are losing faith in capitalism and democracy. The attitudes of young Americans are not unrelated to our polarized political climate and the uncertainty that comes with Artificial Intelligence.
It is not only that we seem to have lost our common understanding of what democracy and freedom of expression mean as we have sorted ourselves into political tribes. There are also retrograde messages and ideologies that have gained traction by promising to turn back decades of social progress. A particular movement has set its eyes on the progress women have made in all strands of life. This so-called masculinist movement is played out in social media and even the halls of religion and has a national audience counted in the millions. As Helen Lewis reports in the Atlantic (“The Men Who Don’t Want Women to Vote”) the masculinist movement preaches that, besides not having the right to vote, women should stay home, not have meaningful jobs and careers, and only serve as housewives and make babies.
I think that a major factor explaining these trends among young people and the attitudes towards women’s rights is the general sense of insecurity and our inability to manage the uncertainty unleashed by the transformational forces that lie at the cross-section of economic and technological developments.
Let’s take first the case of young people. Leaving aside the psychological damage that social media has inflicted on them, many young people are graduating into a labor market dramatically disrupted by Artificial Intelligence. This commencement season we heard the voices of a widespread protest and frustration directed toward speakers who admonished college graduates that they should jump on the AI bandwagon while some of these very speakers are the real movers in doing the disruption that is leaving young people with little certainty as to what the future of work means.
Young men without a college degree are the most vulnerable group among young people. They have seen for years how they have lost ground to their female cohort group in educational attainment and professional success. Hence, the feelings of insecurity and nostalgia for past eras dominated by male prerogatives.
Much ire is also directed these days against young women and couples in general for avoiding childbearing. Hence, the voices for pulling women back to the fold of homebound life and baby making. What the advocates of such ideas do not recognize or at least don’t admit is that social changes are not immune to the economic factors that affect family structure. First, we need to account for the stagnation of wages that make the single bread-earner family impossible and require women to supplement the household income. Second, the high cost of raising children within a social environment where success is measured by high-paying professional careers. And third, the lack of adequate public support for childcare which would ease the trade-off between the legitimate right of women to pursue work and raising children.
Besides the voices that want to reset the clock for women and the power dynamics within families, there are also the voices that bemoan the erosion of traditions and the embracing of a material culture that is empty of spirituality. To them these are the root causes for the decline of birthrates, cultural permissiveness, and the unravelling of the social fabric. But not all traditions of the past merit perpetuation. Many did harm to minorities, women, and the need to expand the human experience. These voices also ignore the disruptive effects of the technological and economic forces. Technology allows people to do more with less help from and interaction with others. It also enables people to stay in touch from a distance. Yet, we have not overcome the need for human bonding; hence, the growing experience of loneliness. At a time technology is pulling people further apart, it may be wise to rethink this process. Economic efficiency on its part requires mobility of human resources. It is also directed toward maximum output which requires an ever-expanding labor force that it also includes women. Production efficiency pays no regard to family and social bonds. When people are compelled to meet the demands of their work, other priorities are pushed aside.
Our attitudes toward the role of family, the rights of men and women, and the cultural and social traditions we wish to carry on must be informed by the effects of the techno-economic order. Which means we face some very important trade-offs. If we are lucky, we may find the way to enjoy the best of both worlds.
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