If you go back to my historic parallel of the industrial revolution it’s here that we will see the most radical shifts. And yet in some ways they are the most difficult to predict. Here’s a few that I can see today:
Almost certainly, left to the open market, leveraging one’s earnings potential will depend on financial status, range of contacts and knowledge, confidence and risk appetite amongst other attributes. Those are all criteria which favour those who already have. And few of them are hugely susceptible to tangible actions like opening up university places – indeed we are already seeing a trend where the most independent are eschewing university for real life experience. I fear therefore that inequality of opportunity will increase without some as yet unclear form of positive intervention.
Financial management of a career based on portfolio income becomes much more a matter for the individual – and again few are well equipped for this innately. A key element of education would therefore need to be around risk, financial arrangements, the purpose and availability of savings, changes to how debt is viewed today etc.
And many financial institutions would need to become much more sophisticated and integrated in their approach – mortgages, pensions etc today are predicated on some very simplistic assumptions: mortgages are predominantly assessed on regular employment income; pensions assume a steady working life (with employer contributions) with a key end date and lack of employment thereafter
Human nature and inertia of established institutions will look to maintain the status quo (think back to office working and broadening of IR35 as two signals today) – but I suspect the genie has well and truly left the bottle. The question therefore is what are our 3 wishes?
Curious about change 