Global transformations are accelerating the need for policies, programs, investments, and strategies that support the well-being of all families, especially those raising young children and their communities. These massive transformations are unfolding rapidly, multiplying risks for families in deep, often overlooked ways. Usually, we wait until the crisis hits to respond.

At Capita, we believe families shouldn’t be an afterthought. We help leaders look ahead to anticipate the global shifts that are transforming the context in which families are formed and children grow, and to design policies that reduce harm and build resilience for families and their communities. In the coming weeks, we’ll share four global transformations that are shaping the context in which today’s young people think about starting and raising families:

• Technological change, especially the rise of artificial intelligence and its impact on jobs and caregiving
• Climate change and ecological degradation, and the risks they pose to children’s health and futures
• Demographic shifts, from falling birth rates to rapid urbanization and aging populations
• Political shifts, as old systems falter and new orders emerge.

Alongside each one, we share questions we’re exploring at Capita because we believe reflection and anticipation are essential to creating a more sustainable, family-centered future.

Four Global Transformations

AI and Family Flourishing

Right now, we hear constantly about artificial intelligence (especially with the big AI announcement today from the White House). While debates about AI’s societal impacts dominate headlines, its profound effects on families — the basic unit of society — and their communities are often underexplored and fragmented (a quick search of the work done so far by the UK’s AI Safety Institute finds no mentions of “family”, other than about “model families”). Yet, as with all major social transformation, the story of AI is, significantly, a family story, with far-reaching implications for financial security, caregiving, and child development, safety, and connection.

For instance, changes to work are significant. Unlike past technological advances, which primarily affected routine-based skills in middle- and low-wage jobs, today’s AI is also reshaping high-skill, high-income roles, demanding new skills and adaptability. Research by Molly Kinder and colleagues at Brookings Institution shows that, for better or worse, the better-paid and more education a job requires, the more likely it is to be transformed by AI.

Geography matters, too. Brookings’ analysis shows that knowledge-driven cities like San Francisco, San Jose, Durham, New York, and Washington D.C.will likely feel the effects sooner than cities with fewer office-based jobs like Toledo or Fort Wayne.

This shift is reshaping entire sectors, and governments at all levels must respond not only to potential job loss and inequality but also to the ripple effects on families. These regional disparities could create uneven pressures on families, impacting caregiving and reshaping economic stability and community dynamics.

At Capita, we’re asking:

• Financial security: What do these transformations mean for family economic security
• Caregiving: How will changes in the workforce affect caregiving, parental presence, and children’s development? Could AI open the door to more flexible jobs and time with children or reduce stability even further?
• Children: What can policymakers do to ensure children are protected, connected, and not overlooked in an AI-dominated future?
• Community Resilience: As industries and local economies shift, how will local governments adapt to support families through these transitions?

Climate Change and Children

We hear about climate change daily in the news, science, and politics. But we need to think deeper. This isn’t just about rising temperatures, stronger storms, or an abundant clean energy future. It’s about our children, their developing bodies, their sensitive brains, and their future. The impacts of climate change and ecological degradation will increase over the coming decades, with potentially devastating consequences for the health and well-being of young children.

We know more than ever about what’s coming. Advances in computing and climate modeling help us anticipate more extreme heat, more traumatic weather events, and increased exposure to harmful air, water, and food conditions, all of which are potentially traumatic threats to children. The systems meant to protect them, from health care to education to housing, are already stretched thin and not built to handle what’s ahead.

These environmental shocks are only part of the picture. As habitats degrade, the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks, diseases that jump from animals to humans, increases. Unlike COVID-19, the next outbreak may not spare children. As we confront climate change, we must also ask:

• Can we build child-centered social infrastructure capable of buffering and healing the traumas from extreme heat and extreme weather events?
• In the age of climate change, how can we design societies that place children’s needs, well-being, and rights at their core?
• What will it take to anticipate and prevent the worst impacts on children’s health, development, and well-being?

Demographic Shifts and the Future of Families

We’re all watching demographic changes unfold in real time. Many parents are choosing to have fewer children or none at all. Birth rates around the globe are falling, while the elderly population continues to grow. What does this mean for our economies? Our healthcare systems? Our schools?

In much of the world, birth rates are low, and median ages are rising. In many high-income countries, populations are projected to peak soon, then decline, unless offset by higher fertility or increased migration. Aging populations will place a mounting strain on social security systems and slow economic growth.

Urbanization is another key shift,  with over half of the population living in cities. Africa is projected to experience the fastest urban growth of any continent, with its urban population expected to double from 704 million to 1.4 billion by 2050. By then, two-thirds of Africans will live in urban areas, impacting the demand for housing, land, jobs, and health services. These shifts will shape social interactions, and specifically the well-being of children and their families.

Migration from lower-income to higher-income countries will continue to be necessary to meet workforce needs—especially in care—but it will continue to be contested by political volatility and public resistance. Anticipating and preparing for these demographic changes is no longer optional; it is essential. And doing so demands policies and strategies that place children and their families at the center.

• Will wealthier countries with exceptionally low fertility rates support families that wish to have more children?
• Will they remove the economic and social barriers that make parenting feel out of reach for so many young people?
• Can African nations build the infrastructure needed to meet the educational and social welfare needs of younger populations?
• How will cities adapt to a low-birth future? Will they become places where families with young children can thrive, or will they continue pushing them to the periphery?

Political Shifts

“The first gesture of a new politics must be this: to fully admit disorientation and to assume responsibility for difficult strategic choices.” – Slavoj Žižek

This is the penultimate installment in my LinkedIn series on great disruptions impacting the stability, predictability, and quality of family life in the United States and around the world.

Across the Western world, an old political order is unraveling. Since 2008, the Neoliberal consensus, once embraced by both center-left and center-right parties, has steadily lost ground. Populist parties, particularly on the right, now offer a new and compelling alternative in many countries, drawing strong support from the working classes long disaffected with decades of free trade, free movement of capital, and liberal immigration policies.

Meanwhile, parties of the left, like the Democrats in the United States, struggle to redefine their purpose and marshal their energies and resources to articulate a political order to rival national populism.

This is a moment of fear and hope when politics feels highly turbulent. Yet, possibilities to creatively articulate a long-term vision for a humane and hopeful political future are legion.

The end of one political order and the not-yet-emergence of persuasive rivals to populism raises questions about how families and children will be impacted. Changes in policies, social systems, healthcare access, immigration laws, education, and the strength of the democracy will affect how children flourish and the stability of families. At Capita, we’re asking:

• Can we build a humane political vision that prioritizes families and their communities?
• How can political systems guide societies towards more communitarian values that resist division and promote solidarity?
• How will the political disruptions in the United States and other economically powerful countries affect the flourishing of children and families around the globe?

The Road Ahead for Families

These four global transformations are not isolated trends. Together, they are risk multipliers that deepen instability and make it harder for families and their communities to flourish. Their combined effects create a more volatile and uncertain world for raising children.

Yet families still need what they always have: care, love, stability, support, and dignity. Meeting these timeless needs requires timely action.

To safeguard family well-being, governments, philanthropy, and civil society must urgently adapt, designing policies and systems that offer greater stability, predictability, and security. Unless we respond to the rapidly changing context in which families are forming and raising children—where policy is made, strategies are shaped, programs are delivered, and investments are deployed—our collective efforts will fall short.

The future of family flourishing depends on our values and how we navigate and adapt to the transformations already underway. This is the work we are committed to at Capita.

Joe Waters is Capita’s Co-Founder + CEO