Americans care more about future generations than many think – and that gap could matter for policy

Caring about future generations means believing that people who will live decades or centuries from now deserve ethical consideration. In practice, that means taking their interests into account when making all kinds of decisions across a range of issues – from aggressively cutting carbon emissions to investing in pandemic preparedness initiatives and regulating powerful emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

While it may sound like a niche moral view to care about future generations in this way, our new research^[1], published in the academic journal Futures, suggests otherwise. In fact, Americans appear to care substantially about future generations. Nevertheless, they also systematically underestimate how much other Americans care.

To study this, we conducted two online surveys of U.S. adults, totaling 1,000 respondents. The samples were built to roughly match the U.S. population in age, gender, race or ethnicity, and political affiliation. In one survey, people told us their own views about future generations. In the other, a different group told us what they thought the average American believes.

We examined this in three ways. First, we asked how many future generations people think society should keep in mind when making collective decisions. For example, when setting climate targets or designing pandemic response systems, how many future generations should count as stakeholders in that decision? Second, we asked how many future generations elected officials should keep in mind when making decisions about laws and public policy. Third, we asked how far into the future people still deserve “moral concern.”

For the third question, participants were shown a list of the present generation and the next 50 generations, with each generation defined as a 25-year period. They then indicated how many of those generations still belonged inside their “moral circle.” In plain terms: If someone will live 100, 200, or even 1,000 years from now, does their suffering matter – and do we have some responsibility to help make their lives go better?

We found that Americans, on average, extended at least some moral concern about 28 generations into the future, or roughly 700 years. But there was a mismatch about when other people’s concern faded – respondents guessed that it happened around 21 generations out, about 175 years sooner.

A similar pattern appeared on the policy questions. Americans said society and government should take into account people living roughly 16 to 17 generations ahead, respectively – around 400 to 425 years into the future. But they assumed other Americans would endorse a shorter horizon of only about 13 generations, or roughly 325 years. In other words, Americans are more future-oriented than they think their fellow citizens are.

Why it matters

Public support for long-term policies depends partly on what people think other people value. Research on climate policy^[2], for example, shows that Americans often underestimate how much support already exists for major mitigation measures. When people wrongly think their view is unusual, they can become less likely to speak up, join with others or pressure leaders to act^[3].

Our findings suggest a similar dynamic may shape support for future-oriented policies more broadly. For issues such as pandemic preparedness, nuclear risk and emerging technologies, decisions made now can affect people far into the future^[4].

It’s possible that a person might support stronger emissions cuts, better disease-prevention systems or safeguards on high-risk technologies, but stay quiet if they assume most other Americans do not care about those kinds of long-term consequences^[5].

What’s next