Invest in the future of humans

Find out how lifestyle changes across education, healthcare, and happiness and consumer preferences can result in investment opportunities.

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At a glance

Humanity is facing a demographic expansion alongside large structural shifts, including the Fourth Industrial Revolution and rising environmental pressures. These interconnected trends are creating a range of opportunities for investors. We believe investors can focus on three key areas: education—what, when, and how we learn; healthcare—the rise of preventive care, health technology, and telemedicine; and happiness and consumer preferences—the roles of demography and technology in influencing our well-being.

What will the next 30 years bring?

Over the next 30 years, the size of the global population will grow and our average age will increase. These demographic trends are taking place alongside major structural shifts. The Fourth Industrial Revolution powered by automation and connectivity and the environmental credit crunch will alter the way the global economy works. All these issues are entwined. We concentrate on three key areas where we expect changes to be largest: education, health technology, and consumer preferences.

Education

In a digitalized era where humans work and compete with machines, learning will increasingly have to focus on flexibility, creativity and innovation, interpersonal skills, and mastery of technology. As knowledge gets outdated sooner and working lives grow longer, the university is no longer the final point of acquiring skills, as the need to learn will stretch into retirement. While we expect the overall education market to grow at a high-single-digit rate over the next decade, private education will expand even more rapidly as the public sector lags the rise in demand. The market for e-learning, for-profit postsecondary education, language learning, and test preparation should experience a high teens rate of growth. In education, we see investment opportunities in public and private markets in education technology (“edtech”) and ancillary services, and companies that have a superior record in training and developing their employees. Investing in education aligns with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – Quality Education. Related opportunities include businesses that provide education content and technology services; providers of education finance; and companies that own, develop, and manage learning infrastructure, such as student housing.

Key investment takeaways:

  • Humanity faces huge demographic and structural changes. The global population is growing and aging. Economies are also being transformed by connectivity, automation, and an ecological credit crunch.
  • These pressures will create a range opportunities for investors.
  • We see the greatest disruption and opportunity in three main areas: education, healthcare, and consumer preferences.

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