One in three babies born today will live to 100, but all will likely lead longer, busier and more interesting lives, writes Catherine Armitage.
My name is Ruby Isabella. I am a baby born in Sydney in 2012. Life is ahead of me. Some of it is unimaginable, but we already know a lot of what I can expect, good and not so good, if things keep going much as they are.
My life will likely be longer, busier and more interesting than yours. It will be healthier if you can get this obesity thing sorted quickly. My parents are middle class and educated, so I've got a great head start. Even so, some things my parents take for granted, I'll do without, like cheap meat, abundant water, a house and plastic. Unlike my grandparents, I won't expect to die in a nuclear war, but a graze on my knee could be a serious medical risk.
Your linear lives look very straight compared to mine. My path will be less ordered than today's progression from school to tertiary education; to a job to marrying, buying a house, having kids - all the while working until retirement followed by death. I won't follow a path at all. It will be more like a progression of connected loops as if around a clock, with learning, work and caring fixed and constant at the centre.
I'm one of about 200 babies born on any day in NSW, or about 300,000 born in Australia every year. If I'd been a boy my parents probably would have named me William Lachlan, the current most popular boys' names. Like two-thirds of the babies born this year, I was born into a marriage. But couples without children are already overtaking the model of the nuclear family - Mum, Dad, a couple of kids - as the most common Australian household type. By the time I'm 18, almost one third of Australian households will have only one person in them.
My life expectancy right now is 81.4 years and William Lachlan's is 79.6 years. By the time I'm middle aged, my life expectancy will have increased to 91 years and William's won't be as far behind, thanks to medical breakthroughs. Of course that's an average, and many of us will live much longer. In fact so many of us - at least one in three - will make it to 100 that the President of Australia will reserve her telegrams for the very lucky or very disciplined few who get to 120. I'll be happy just to meet my great grandchildren.
When I'm 38, at the midpoint of the century, there will be 13.7 million more people in Australia than now. That's a 62 per cent increase. There will be nine billion people in the world and still growing.
At the turn of the century when I'm old, Tanzania and Nigeria will be the third and fifth most populous nations and they will long since have replaced China and India as the world's cheap labour source. But on production lines, they'll be competing with robots or human-robot hybrids which (or who?) can walk your dog and clean your house or assemble an aircraft or a cybernetic device on an automated production line.
But by then production lines might be obsolete because 3D printers will have evolved to produce made-to-order goods from clothes and shoes to household goods before your eyes.
My schooling will become more interesting as I go, as today's digital natives grow up to become teachers. They'll know how to use all the gadgets at their disposal to make learning easier, fun and compatible with my short attention span. I'll always be switched on. I'll crowdsource my big decisions, taking votes among my closest 30 or so net friends. I'll do a university degree of course - just about everyone will. I'll probably work in a knowledge-based service industry which will depend on mining data from customer transactions in unimaginable volumes to determine which services to provide to whom, where and when.
Knowledge will be growing so fast that I'll always be retraining. The workforce on-ramping and off-ramping which women now do in the child-rearing years will spread to men. We'll do it throughout our longer working lives, taking voluntary and involuntary breaks when we opt to recharge, rear children, care for relatives or change jobs.
If I get married, chances are it will be when I'm about 26, and I'll have lived with my partner first. But there's at least a one-in-three chance my marriage will end in divorce. There's about the same chance I won't get married at all. Over my lifetime the idea of family will become much less rigid and less biologically based. But we'll need to care for each other more than ever.
I'm big for my age, as you've probably noticed. My mother may have cause to regret that, just as her mother's mother came to rue drinking and smoking during pregnancy before anyone knew better. There will be no end to mother guilt as foetal conditions in pregnancy are seen to rival a child's genetic inheritance (nature) and social and physical environment (nurture) in determining its life chances.
For my generation of mothers, the pressure in pregnancy will be to ensure not just a healthy birth, but a long life. We'll consume particular nutrients in specified quantities, and shun others. We'll seek not just to minimise the chances of our offspring being prone to specific diseases but also to maximise the chances of them being academic or athletic, male or female.
I'll probably have one child, two at the most, at a younger age than my mother did, because I'll see how hard the juggle was for her. My workplaces will be set up so it will be easier for me to work longer hours while caring for my kids and parents, but I'll still be busier than my parents ever were. That's because I'm a member of the crunch generation, the one that will have to manage the flow-on effects of the postwar baby boom then declining fertility rates. Right now, there are five people in the work force for every person over 65. When I'm in my prime, aged 38 in 2050, there will be only 2.7 workers for each person over 65. I'll be busy.
I'll need to be among the "cognitive elite" to earn enough money for a house in Sydney. When I'm 30, a mid-price house in Sydney will cost $3.5 million. That's about $2 million in today's dollars, compared with $657,000 today. If I'm on an average wage, after almost 30 years aged 65 I'll have earned $8.6 million, or $2.6 million in today's dollars, with accumulated super of $2.3 million ($587,000 in today's dollars). But I won't stop working at 65. I'll keep going as long as I'm well.
I won't pay cash for anything. The debit and credit chip implanted in my hand will take care of things.
Carbon will be expensive in the low-carbon economy, recalibrated for climate change. In my late teenage years carbon dioxide emissions will plateau finally and half of them will be attributable to aviation. International air travel will revert to being a privilege afforded only by the rich.
I'll look back with disbelief at today's profligacy with plastic made from fossil fuels, in clothes and carpets and take-away containers. I'm unlikely to buy one, but hybrid petrol-electric cars will have much smaller, more efficient engines. Sensors will cause them to brake automatically to avoid impacts. In the cities they will run on smart roads also embedded with sensors which keep them a safe distance apart at a safe speed.
People and objects will communicate through sensors in everything from fridges to lounges to bathroom cabinets, so the fridge can restock, the lounge can tell us we're putting on weight, and the bathroom cabinet re-orders toilet paper.
There's a 70 per cent chance I'll live in a capital city. I'm not likely to see a Tasmanian devil in the wild. The golden bandicoot, eastern quoll and brush-tailed tree rat will become extinct by the time I'm 30. But I've a good chance of seeing a mammoth in the flesh, just as soon as scientists perfect the re-programming into an embryo of a mammoth cell preserved in ice and implant it into an Indian elephant.
In Australia, the Christian messages of Easter and Christmas will struggle for attention with other voices as secularism spreads. I've a good chance of being in the "Nons" (non-believers) which will be the fastest growing group in the developed world. But worldwide the figures for believers will increase as religious freedom revives in China.
Who knows, in my lifetime we may even get answers to some of the biggest questions confronting humanity. Brain research will lead us closer to the secret of human consciousness. Imagine if, before I die, I can search my soul - literally.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/whats-the-future-baby-20120405-1wfez.html#ixzz1rFV6qczk
