Trends and forecasts for the new millenium.

A professional forecaster who spent five years compiling the Encyclopedia of the Future offers his vision of events and developments that will affect your live in the next millennium.

Predicting the future requires the perspective of history. The future is part of a seamless continuum and

emerges from roots deep in the past. For example, if we think of the computer as a computational device, we can trace its history back more than 4,000 years to the abacus. If we think of computers as merely the latest advance in the development of communications, the timeline traces back tens of thousands of years, or perhaps millions if we include gestures and speech.

Broadly speaking, there is nothing new under the sun; there are only evolutionary adaptations to changes that are brought about by new understanding.

Besides historical perspective, predicting the future requires special expertise. Because the storehouse of knowledge has become so vast and complex and the growth of knowledge is accelerating, advances in society are becoming increasingly dependent on people with specialized knowledge. So when we need sound thinking about long-term possible developments in any field of inquiry, we usually consult those few experts at the tops of their fields. But there is a danger: Expertise and specialization can lead to parochialism and tunnel vision, limiting the specialist's ability to see interconnections with other fields. Thus, professional futurists need to draw upon wide-ranging information from many areas. Futurists' ability to see connections among many topics allows them to identify the broader impacts of various trends.

It is this unique combination of perspective and expertise that enables futurists to see beyond current trends and construct useful forecasts about the future.

Here is my best advice for gathering materials to provide a solid foundation for forecasts: Voracious reading is imperative. I regularly scan up to 60 different magazines, newsletters, and newspapers. I annually acquire and peruse 100-1,000 books focused on futuristic themes and areas of interest. I go out of my way to collect chronologies and timelines of important developments. I rely heavily on statistical compendia, almanacs, and chartbooks. I listen to or view meaningful TV features, debates, and topical forums. I hire consultants to conduct global computer searches of scientific, technical, and professional literature databases on points whenever I am conducting specific research projects. Correspondence with experts on topics of interest, political leaders, and fellow futurists' research is relentless. There are no shortcuts.

The forecasts in this report are largely my own, based on data from a wide variety of authoritative sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, government statistical reporting services, major trade and industry-specific journals, and other journals such as Vital Speeches of the Day, Future Survey, and national weekly news magazines (U.S. News and World Report, Time, and Newsweek). For the most part, references to specific sources have been omitted for the sake of brevity.

This article offers a variety of selected trends and forecasts, based on my 40 years of experience developing, implementing, and teaching foresight techniques, including five years organizing and editing the Encyclopedia of the Future. They offer insights that can help individuals build their personal bridges to the new millennium.

Investing in Communications

1. Building the infostructure: Monumental investments are being made to develop and enhance the information superhighways. In the United States, a total of between $100 billion and $500 billion is being committed over the next several years to extend and upgrade competing information handling modes.

2. Business investment in computer technologies represented half of all capital investment ($1 trillion) in the decade from 1984 to 1994. Since 1991, business devoted more capital spending to computer and communications hardware than to investments for factories, buildings, and other durables.

3. Information technologies are allowing increasing numbers of people to work at home. The number of home offices, 20.6 million in 1988, may reach 60 million in 1998.

4. Telecommuting and advances in videoconferencing will largely replace face-to-face business settings by 2020. More than half of all workers in advanced Information Era societies will work out of their home or from decentralized offices.

Infotech Breakthroughs

5. Microprocessor chips will contain 1 billion transistors by 2011 - a 100-fold increase over current chips, according to Intel Corporation chairman Andrew Grove.

6. Satellite feed will become the most widespread transmission mode worldwide by 2010, spurred by low-cost use and by less-developed countries leapfrogging costly hardwired infrastructures.

7. Optical transmission of digital signals will grow from 80 gigabits per second in 1997 to beyond 100 gigabits per second by 2011. (A gigabit-one-billionth of a second - is to a second what a second is to 31.7 years.) Scientists are already working on transmitting data in terabits (one-trillionth of a second); at this speed, the contents of the Library of Congress, estimated at 25 terabits, could be transmitted in just over five minutes.

Consumer Electronics

8. Computer use is accelerating. In 1995, for the first time, Americans spent more money on computers than on televisions. An estimated 60 million individuals worldwide are now using the Internet, and users may number 130 million by 2000. E-mail, introduced in 1982, soared from 62 million active accounts in 1996 to 93.5 million in 1997 and will double by 2014.

9. Portable phones are gaining popularity. The number of cellular telephone subscribers worldwide jumped from fewer than 1 million in 1985 to more than 90 million currently and will grow to 330 million by 2001.

10. Hand-held videophones will prove commercially successful by 2025, and multipurpose flat-panel high-definition screens for computer, television, telephone, and other uses will become household staples by 2040.

11. Electronic notebooks will supplant paper tablets by 2027; electronic publishing may surpass paper-based publishing by 2005. One key driver in this trend is real estate: It's too expensive to devote some 20% of office space to storing paper.

12. Voice recognition, voice synthesizing, and voice-activated computer systems will usher in a cascade of communication growth. Accompanied by palm-sized instantaneous translation programs, these voice-entry computers will be a boon to international tourism.

Medical Breakthroughs

13. Diagnostics will advance rapidly in the next 50 years. Traditional methods of diagnosing symptoms in the laboratory once took many weeks, often requiring hundreds of labor-intensive and costly experiments. In the future, doctors will use credit-card-sized diagnostic plates consisting of up to a million or more microcell probes - arrays of miniature test tubes - to detect disposition or to verify diseases, deformities, and dysfunctions. Results will be read and analyzed by computers in just minutes.

14. Wearable computerized health monitors will screen key body functions and provide real-time information on diet, exercise, and stress-reduction requirements.

15. Genetic research will yield ever more information about factors that predispose individuals to diseases and other health problems and will open up entirely new treatment and healing opportunities.

16. Cloning technologies will be developed for prolonging life, for providing stockpiled spare body parts, and eventually for duplicating individual humans.

Health, Lifestyles, and Values

17. Too many people are getting too fat. The number of Americans who are clinically overweight and obese now exceeds the number at or below normal weight for the first time in history.

18. Changing the dietary habits of Americans will get more emphasis over the next 70 years; significant dietary changes typically require a generation to alter culturally embedded habits. Many will resort to anti-obesity drugs and/or genetic engineering.

19. Euthanasia may become common, as the right to choose extends from abortion rights (rights over birth) to death rights. New definitions of "death" will be heatedly debated. Soaring medical costs will influence views on death: Terminal illness and dying currently account for 10% of health-care outlays; for Medicare, it's 27% of program outlays.

20. Ethical controversies will swirl around cloning, conception and contraception technologies, creation of new life-forms, and other related issues that force society to question the meaning of life itself.

21. Eugenics will gain acceptance as humans take control over their own evolution. Animal and plant genetic manipulation opens the way to human biological engineering. Conception will be less a matter of chance and more a result of genetic screening and manipulation to maximize desirable traits and minimize undesirable ones.

Population Growth

22. Population on the planet grew by 80 million in 1996, down from a peak increase of 87 million in 1980. This is the equivalent of adding a "new United States" about every three years. Global population will double in the next 100 years, rising from 5.75 billion in 1995 to 10 billion-12 billion or even 15 billion by 2100.

23. The U.S. proportion of world population will fall from 4.7% of the total in 1994 to 4% by 2025.

Household Size

24. Households are getting smaller. In Colonial times, households of five to seven persons were the norm. By 1900, the number of persons per U.S. household averaged 4.76, declining to 2.67 by 1994. Average household size will continue to fall, reaching 2.35 by 2020.

25. Household composition will also change, with more singles and mingles (i.e., housemates and cohabiting couples). Nuclear families consisting of a married couple with their children will have drastically declined due to liberalized divorce laws, postponement of first marriage, more out-of-wedlock births, increased social acceptance of cohabitation, effective birth-control technologies, and steeply escalating costs of raising children.

26. Family units will wane and no longer be the primary social unit within the next several centuries: Patriarchal dominance will atrophy as women achieve fully equal rights, sexual reproduction is relegated to elective/selective childbearing, and state care of the young takes over.

Aging

27. Society will grow grayer. The proportion of Americans aged 65 and older has risen from 3% in 1870 to 12.6% in 1995 and may represent 21.5% of the population by 2030 and 27% by 2050. Growing numbers of elderly will impose enormous demands on health-care delivery, particularly mental health and assisted care in nursing homes.

28. Retirement age dropped from an average of 67 years in the early 1950s to 60 years in 1994, but the trend toward early retirement will be reversed, rising to an average of 67 years in 2022 and 70 in 2025, as Americans live healthier and longer lives.

29. More age-centered political controversies will arise, especially over government spending. Programs for the elderly could increase from one-third of all federal spending to more than one-half by 2010, pitting economic needs of YIPPIES (young impoverished workers) against WHOOPIES (well-heeled older persons).

30. Some enterprises will see gold in gray. Accommodating the needs of the elderly could mean big business: New motor vehicle operating systems will be designed for people with reduced dexterity and vision; publishers will produce more books with large type and more recorded books.

Multiculturalism

31. Immigration will continue to increase the overall U.S. population. Immigration will steadily increase racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity. By 2100, persons of European descent will comprise less than 50% of the U.S. population.

Hispanics now outnumber African-Americans in 21 U.S. states and will become the largest ethnic minority by 2020, comprising 15.7% of total population compared with 13.9% for blacks.

32. Homogeneity will fade. Despite a long history of increasing diversity, the United States will likely see melting-pot homogeneity give way to a mosaic society, with periods of separatist conflict flaring up as ethnic enclaves seek to promote their group's own interests.

Business and the Economy

33. The business of America is leisure? Much activity in postindustrial economies has shifted to leisure, recreation, tourism, and hospitality sectors. Tourism already ranks as the second-largest employer in the United States and third-largest retail segment, with annual sales surpassing $400 billion.

Beyond this impending wave of economic development are biotechnology and related life-sciences industries that will surpass tourism as a major economic activity in industrialized societies between 2200 and 2500. Achieving mastery over the blueprints and mechanisms for creation itself will mark the major turning point in human development. Agricultural efficiencies made possible by genetic engineering will dwarf those of the Green Revolution.

34. Global competition will spur major U.S. manufacturers to shed capital-intensive production facilities, shift employment to low-wage jurisdictions, and minimize costly regulatory controls, such as those guarding worker safety and the environment.

35. Companies will increasingly outsource capital-intensive functions, outreach through lower-cost media such as the Internet, and outdo rivals by offering products and services of higher perceived quality.

36. Electronic commerce is taking over more and more of retail and wholesale commerce. Virtual corporations use communications technologies for instantaneous ordering and fulfillment, eliminating the need for costly production facilities, warehouses, and storefronts.

37. Retail stores and wholesalers may largely disappear as the convenience and time savings of electronic shopping and home delivery alter consumer behaviors, starting with time-pressed dual-wage-earner households and the elderly.

World Trade

38. Globalization of trade means that everyone shares in increased prosperity. Between 1990 and 1996, world trade volume rose from $7 trillion to $11 trillion. World trade is projected to reach $15 trillion-$16 trillion in 2000.

39. China is now ranked as the world's third-largest economy, based on purchasing power parity, behind the United States and Japan. If growth rates continue, China will become the largest economy worldwide in the next 15 to 20 years, possibly as early as 2010.

40. Pacific Rim countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, will account for more than half of world GNP by 2040.

41. Regional preferential trading blocs will dominate the global economy over the next century. The European Community will grow to 25 members by 2010. The American, Canadian, and Mexican trade zone may be expanded into a Free Trade of the Americas, embracing 34 Western Hemisphere democracies sometime between 2005 and 2010.

Personal Finance

42. Stockholding is rapidly becoming democratized. In 1916, only a few hundred thousand people participated in the U.S. stock market. Now, thanks largely to retirement plans, 41% of American households have become stockholders.

43. Personal debt is growing, putting a damper on consumer spending and savings. Mortgages and home-equity-loan payments totaled $4.22 trillion in 1993, and installment payments on credit cards reached $1.17 trillion in 1996. By mid-1997, service payments on consumer debt approached 11.5% of disposable income, outpacing spending on food.

44. The number of personal bankruptcies climbed to 1.3 million in the United States in 1997 and will exceed 1.5 million by 2000. Instead of accumulating wealth for the future, Americans are increasingly borrowing from the future. The costs of the big-ticket expenses they're borrowing for - such as home mortgages, college tuition, and nursing-home care - are outpacing inflation.

45. Education costs at private schools (tuition, room, board, and fees) more than doubled in 10 years in the United States, rising from an average rate of $25,514 in 1974 to $64,410 in 1994. Education costs are likely to double again by 2014.

Rising college costs will force growing numbers of parents to choose between saving for their retirements and paying for their children's education.

Energy Supply and Demand

46. More oil will be imported. OPEC members supplied 25% of global oil in 1986 and 35%-45% in 1995. By 2002, two-thirds of U.S. petroleum will be imported. Half of the world's oil will be supplied by OPEC members by 2020.

47. Petroleum prices will soar as supplies dwindle to precariously low levels. By 2050, petroleum and natural gas will no longer be burned as fuel but reserved, instead, for higher value-added uses such as plastics.

48. Electricity demand worldwide will quadruple over the next 50 years, according to conservative estimates. (The French Academy of Sciences projects as much as a ninefold increase.)

49. Electric power generating plants will increasingly rely on coal, of which there may be enough to meet global demands for 200-300 more years, or perhaps over 400-500 years, assuming enhanced efficiencies.

50. Nuclear power will meet most electric power needs following breakthroughs in high-temperature plasma fusion, which will become commercially viable by 2020 and offer the world a virtually limitless and cheap source of energy. Clean and safe fusion will become a panacea for global warming.

51. Alternative energy sources are still prohibitively expensive compared with fossil fuels: 4[cents]-5[cents] per kilowatt hour for coal or gas (1993), compared with 4[cents]-7[cents] for hydropower, 5[cents]-8[cents] for geothermal, 5[cents]-9[cents] for wind generation, 6[cents]-8[cents] for biomass, 10[cents]-12[cents] for solar power, and 30[cents]-40[cents] for photovoltaics. Alternative energies currently provide less than 1% of U.S. energy needs, and this share is unlikely to reach more than 5% within the next 25 years.

Transportation

52. The world's fleet of cars will grow. There are currently some 625 million motor vehicles in use around the world, and the population of motor vehicles will grow to 1 billion by 2025.

53. Traffic jams in the United States consumed an estimated 1.6 billion lost work hours in 1989 and will consume 8.1 billion work hours by 2005. During 1997, traffic gridlock cost $51 billion in lost wages and wasted fuel. Things will only get worse as the number of motor vehicles and the population increase and trip-generation per household escalates.

54. Vehicles and drivers will increase by 25%-35% in 2010. There will be an average of two vehicles for every U.S. household by 2020, up from 1.68 in 1983. Americans overwhelmingly prefer personal motor transportation, and few of the 89.7% of Americans currently using cars are likely to change their minds.

55. Automated highways and automated chauffeuring on high-density roadways will reduce congestion, allowing 10 times as many vehicles in computer-controlled chains to travel in a lane. High costs associated with automated roadways - well over $1 trillion - will slow implementation.

56. Motor vehicle emission taxes will be imposed by 2013 to curb urban pollution. The taxes will be scaled to weight, horsepower, motor efficiency, miles driven, and number of vehicles owned per driver.

57. Superfast rail systems approaching speeds of 200 mph will collapse distances for exurban areas. Global perspectives will shrink as suborbital space travel becomes commercially available to the public by 2021.

Other Trends and Forecasts

58. The World: The number of countries before World War II was about 50; by 1995, there were 256. By the year 2025, there may be 500 or more nation-states, but they will likely be linked together by thousands of treaties and agreements.

59. Information: The world's fund of information is doubling every two to two-and-a-half years. Scientific information doubles every five years, and scientific knowledge doubles every 10 years. Literature doubles every 10 to 15 years; scientific articles double in four to five years.

By the time a child born today finishes college, knowledge may have quadrupled; by the time that child reaches age 50, knowledge will have grown 32-fold. As much as 97% of world knowledge will be accumulated over one person's lifetime. Continuing education becomes a fixed feature of infotech.

60. Health-Care Costs: Healthcare costs soared past $1 trillion in 1996 in the United States, outpacing domestic inflation, and they are expected to reach $1.4 trillion by 2000. The percentage of GDP devoted to health care will rise to 19% by 2000 and 20% by 2033. Rationing health care looms as a major political issue. Cost controls on open-ended healthcare delivery are in the offing. Incremental extension of publicly supported health care will help rescue individuals who are economically devastated or bankrupted by needs.

61. Environment: Assaults on the environment are steadily and surely being reduced in advanced economies as they move from the era of heavy industry to the Information Era. The environment will continue to be a topmost political concern well into the twenty-first century. Conserving resources, minimizing ecological effects, and sustainability will be touchstones of the new survival ethic. The Global Commons will become the driving force of environmental protection. By 2030, more than 50% of all household trash in the United States will be recycled.

62. Packaging: Materials with sensors, combined with nanotechnologies, will make "smart" labels for food products feasible. These labels will calculate the passage of time and the humidity, temperature, and other physical conditions to which a packaged product is exposed, then produce a warning when the product is out of date or otherwise compromised. Plastics will account for more than 50% of all consumer packaging by 2015; universal symbols will be used to facilitate recycling of materials.

63. Crime: U.S. crime rates will continue to decline slowly as the population of crime-prone young people shrinks as a proportion of the overall population. However, crime continues to rank among the top three concerns of Americans. Taxpayers increasingly will object to rising costs for incarcerating prisoners, especially when they realize it annually costs $25,000-$30,000 per inmate.

64. Social Security: Birth rates and death rates are falling in the United States, creating greater numbers of elderly. Social Security trust funds will face insolvency between 2029 and 2036. Social Security, left unchanged, will pile up an overwhelming $8-trillion deficit by 2070; decades of continuing reform will offer incremental relief.

65. Leisure: Workweeks averaged 70 hours during early industrial times (mid-1890s), then plummeted to 38.1 hours during 1980, rebounding to 39.2 hours in 1996. The average workweek will likely fall to 30-35 hours by 2030, making more leisure hours available. By 2010, leisure time will account for over 50% of lifetime activities.

Will the extra leisure time be spent for self-improvement? It seems unlikely: Leisure time is dominated by sedentary pursuits such as watching television. In 1996, media consumption accounted for 3,400 hours (40% of the average person's time), compared with 2,900 hours for sleeping and 2,000 for working. And gambling will continue to be among the fastest-growing segments of the entertainment industry as growing leisure time, increasing affluence, and age-old greed propel interest.

Trend extrapolation is not the only method of forecasting the future, but it is perhaps the most reliable weapon in the futurist's arsenal. When surprises occur, it is tempting to suggest that predicting the future is impossible. For the most part, however, surprises and discontinuities can be traced through the evolution of past and present, and failing to forecast them accurately is a result of failing to do the tedious work of trend analysis. "Wild cards" such as meteor strikes or volcanic eruptions can and do disrupt evolutionary patterns. However, history, cyclic patterns, and increasing knowledge concerning such phenomena provide a basis for projecting their probabilities.

My basic premise in forecasting is that change almost never comes about as a bolt out of the unknown. The evolutionary pathways of the past into the present are well understood, and the direction of these pathways into the future can indeed be visualized and forecast by those with the perspective, expertise - and patience - to study trends.

Forecasts may not be surefire, but they are certainly better than spontaneous surmise or mere conjecture. Foresight enhances abilities to capitalize upon opportunities, minimize (or avoid) adversities, gain lead time for responding, and assert leadership roles in managing change. The "prophetic past and present" provides the foundation for visionary thinking to guide future trends. Futurists are not captives but architects of destiny.

RELATED ARTICLE: Graham T.T. Molitor, Forecaster

Graham T.T. Molitor served as chairman of the editorial board and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of the Future, which was published by Macmillan Library Reference in 1996 after five years of exhaustive research. Among his many other professional activities, he served as research director of the White House Conference on the Industrial World Ahead.

Molitor's perspective on interrelationships among societal developments were honed by directing research for two presidential campaigns and serving as an adviser in several others. His ability to use forecasts to influence trends was sharpened by 14 years' experience as a lobbyist for two Fortune 100 companies.

Molitor's consulting firm, Public Policy Forecasting, Inc., founded 20 years ago, has provided support for developing nearly 100 empirical techniques for comprehensively mapping "signatures of change." The techniques offer a sound basis for projecting continuing trends, their timing, and their outcomes.

For more information about Molitor and the Encyclopedia of the Future, see "The Future of Everything: Editor Discusses the New Encyclopedia of the Future," in THE FUTURIST, July-August 1996.

Sets of the two-volume, 1,115-page Encyclopedia may be ordered from the Futurist Bookstore for $195, cat. no. B-1969.

About the Author

Graham T.T. Molitor is vice president and legal counsel of the World Future Society and president of Public Policy Forecasting, Inc., 9208 Wooden Bridge Road, Potomac, Maryland 20854. Telephone 1-301-762-5174.