`I EXPECT my children will have a better life than I had, but they will also have to work much harder.` Such is the view of Junaid, an executive at a pharmaceutical company, and an interviewee in our research on parental expectations.

Upon further probing, Junaid said, `I have more wealth and luxuries than my parents had but I also work far more, have greater stress and every few years worry about losing my job. My parents had more smiles than I do. My children are abroad and have a better life but they work even harder with little social life and are almost always worried about their jobs.

Junaid is fortunate to have reason to hope his children would have a better life materially, even if it meant a tougher existence. Many around the world today cannot expect even this. Individually, we wish to give our children a life better than ours, and yet, collectively, we have ended up being the first generation that, with a few exceptions, is making life difficult for its offspring.

A report about the UK by the Sutton Trust observes: `For generations growing up in the early 21st century, the dream of just doing better in life, let alone climbing the income ladder, is disappearing.` Meanwhile, Harvard economist Raj Chetty has noted: `The American dream is fading for many in the country.` Broadening these declining social mobility trends, a University of Michigan paper claims that `fewer members of newer generations in several countries grow up to earn more than their parents`.

In Pakistan, the future of the country`s 26 million out-of-school children will be tough in the knowledgeand technology-based realms.

Unicef`s 2024 State of the World`s Children report notes: `Unfortunately, today`s children live in a world fraught with crises, poverty and discrimination. Where far too many are deprived of opportunities to meet their full potential.` One can add to these the impact of climate change, which is going to make the coming decades even harsher in many parts of the world, propelling afierce competition for resources. AI is as much a partner as a competitor which the next generation will have to engage with.

Often the response by governments, educationists and corporate executives is to urge the young to work harder, make resumes longer, and have the resilience to compete endlessly. In fact, this is happening. A survey of 32,000 workers across 17 countries showed that people aged 18 to 24 put in an extra eight and a half hours of work per week, compared to older age groups.

They work late and through break times not because they enjoy their job, though some must, but due to the perennial work insecurity. In a recent article in the Economist titled, `How AI will divide the best from the rest`, the message was clear: success will mean an unimaginable fortune but for a smaller and smaller number of people. Even without these statistics, many know that life for the next generation will be tougher than it has been for us. To some, this has led to a decision not to have children, suppressing the most natural of desires.

How did we end up here? Of many hypotheses, the one I find persuasive is that we have allowed ourselves to fall into the grip of an economic system whose sole purpose is growth and the accumulation of wealth. There is no moral purpose, such as happier people or equitable access to resources, that sets the direction. As a result, while the world is collectively the richest, technologically the most advanced, and more educated than it has been in history, resources have ended up being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Over the last 40 years, this system has deliberately weal(ened public services and pushed wealth into private hands, with the result that today 10 per cent of the richest people own 76pc of global wealth, leaving the rest with less and less to fight for. It is this reality of a shrinking pie for the majority that is camouflaged by the clamour promoting a harder and more competitive life for the next generation as natural,suggesting that nothing can be done about it. But that is not true.

What can be done? The causes are entrenched and so cannot be successfully addressed in a short time. Still, critique and hope can be combined. The first step is to realise that the economic system is at the heart of how the world is constructed. Start anywhere ecological destruction, various strands of extremism, desperate migration, wars, the rampant penetration of technology, the undermining of democracy, etc and you will see that all roads lead to the economic system. Hence, we must endeavour to restructure this system by boosting public services to meet the basic needs of all, insisting on fair wages and taxes to bring down income and wealth inequities, protecting jobs and regulating big business through democratic oversight. A critical understanding of the economic system should be part of high school and university education. It can help young people see its contradictions and sources of exploitation and realise the potential of their own agency to change it.

At the community and personal level, we need to protect, celebrate and enjoy childhood as a phase in itself, not as a path to adulthood. Till age seven at least, let play be the central part of a child`s life. Let children find their passion and then choose a career accordingly in fact, choose life over career. Let homes and schools be full of happiness and cooperation, not hardship and competition. Let children study to discover, and not to simply pass tests. A plant protected when it is tiny grows up to be a strong tree.

David Graeber observed that `the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently`. It is time to act on this and push for a better world, if not for ourselves then certainly for our children. • The writer is dean of the Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University.