Page 78 - The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Box E: Mobility and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The movement of people around the world is both a significant phenomenon
and a huge driver of wealth. How will the fourth industrial revolution
impact human mobility? It may be too soon to tell, but extrapolating from

current trends indicates that mobility will play an ever more important role
in society and economics in the future than today:

– Realizing life aspirations: Corresponding to a rise in awareness of
events and opportunities in other countries thanks to rising connectivity,
mobility is increasingly seen as a life choice to be exercised at some

point, especially by young people. While individual motivations vary
enormously, the search for work, the desire to study, the need for
protection, the desire to reunite family, and so on, there is a greater
readiness to look for solutions over the horizon.

– Redefining individual identities: Individuals used to identify their lives
most closely with a place, an ethnic group, a particular culture or even a

language. The advent of online engagement and increased exposure to
ideas from other cultures mean that identities are now more fungible than
previously. People are now much more comfortable with carrying and

managing multiple identities.

– Redefining family identity: Thanks to the combination of historical

migration patterns and low-cost connectivity, family structures are being
redefined. No longer bound by space, they often stretch across the world,
with constant family dialogue, reinforced by digital means. Increasingly,
the traditional family unit is being replaced by the trans-national family
network.

– Re-mapping labour markets: Worker mobility has the potential to

transform domestic labour markets for better or for worse. On one hand,
workers in the developing world constitute a pool of human resources --
at multiple skill levels that can satisfy unmet labour market needs in the
developed world. Talent mobility is a driver of creativity, of industrial

innovation and work efficiency. On the other hand, the injection of migrant
labour into domestic markets, if not managed effectively, can produce
wage distortions and social unrest in host nations, while depriving origin
countries of valuable human capital.

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