Societies that are making progress are those in which the present generation enjoys a better standard of living than their parents. In many countries this can no longer be taken for granted.
Slow economic growth, high levels of debt, poorly performing education systems, unacceptably high levels of long term unemployment and the rising cost of ageing societies imply that for many in the advanced world the long-standing trend of children being better educated than their parents and enjoying higher incomes appears to be slowing, or perhaps even reversing.