Humanising society means putting the human being back at the centre of our collective choices. For too long, we have organised life around production, efficiency, competitiveness, speed and growth, as if progress could be measured only by our ability to produce more, consume more and do everything faster. But a society does not exist for its own sake. Institutions, the economy, technology, companies, cities, education and politics should exist to create better living conditions for people. When the opposite happens, when people are required to adapt their lives constantly to the demands of the systems they themselves have created, something begins to be lost.
The signs of that loss are visible. Despite living in an age of extraordinary technological capacity and communication, around one in six people worldwide reports feeling lonely, with the phenomenon particularly significant among younger people (WHO, 2025). Loneliness is not merely an unpleasant feeling: the WHO estimates that it was associated with around 871,000 deaths per year between 2014 and 2019 (WHO, 2025). At the same time, nearly one in seven people worldwide, around 1.2 billion people, were living with a mental disorder in 2023, with anxiety and depression among the most common (WHO, 2026).
Work can also become harmful when it fails to respect the limits of human life. The World Health Organisation and the International Labour Organisation estimated that around 479 million people were working at least 55 hours a week, and that long working hours were associated with around 745,000 deaths from stroke and ischaemic heart disease in 2016 (WHO/ILO, 2021). Trust in institutions has also weakened: in the OECD survey conducted in 2025, only 40% of people, on average, reported high or moderately high trust in their national government, while 43% reported low or no trust (OECD, 2026).
No single cause explains these figures. Loneliness, mental health difficulties, excessive working hours and declining trust arise from many different factors. Yet when we look at these signals together, one question becomes legitimate: if we are now more technologically capable, more economically sophisticated and possess more knowledge than any previous generation, why do so many people still struggle to live with time, balance, security, relationships and meaning?
Humanising society does not mean rejecting the economy, technology, growth or work. It means changing our relationship with them. The economy should serve life, not the other way around. Technology should help us free up time and capacity, rather than simply increasing the intensity and volume of what we produce. Work should continue to require responsibility, competence, commitment and effort, but it should not absorb the whole life of the person who works. A more human society does not propose that we stop working. It proposes that we work better, in better conditions, with greater productivity and with greater respect for people’s lives.
This begins with giving people time back. Time to be with their children, support ageing parents, care for their health, maintain relationships, rest, learn, take part in the community, or be. It should not be regarded as normal for someone to leave home early in the morning, spend most of the day travelling and working, and return when there is hardly any time left to live. Nor should regularly staying beyond working hours, answering messages at night or remaining connected to work at weekends be treated as proof of professional commitment. An organisation can be demanding and productive without turning permanent availability into a measure of dedication. It can schedule meetings within working hours, allow flexibility in starting and finishing times whenever the role permits, assess people by results and the quality of their work, and recognise that life does not begin when the working day ends.
Family life is another area in which this change becomes tangible. It makes little sense to speak about encouraging birth rates while building a society in which having a child is experienced mainly as a logistical, professional or financial difficulty. Having a child should be an opportunity for life, fulfilment, and happiness, rather than a permanent source of insecurity or conflict with work. For that to happen, society must create real conditions: sufficient, affordable childcare; opening hours compatible with family life; balanced parental leave; greater flexibility when a child is ill; and workplace cultures that do not penalise those who choose to become mothers or fathers. Raising and supporting a child is not only a private responsibility. It is also a decisive contribution to society’s future.
Work itself benefits directly from this change. People who are permanently tired, anxious, worried or caught in conflict between their professional and personal lives do not work at their best. They may meet schedules and complete tasks, but they lose concentration, creativity, willingness to cooperate and the ability to make good decisions. An organisation that respects people’s lives can benefit from employees who are more engaged, motivated, creative, stable, and willing to contribute. Less exhaustion can mean less absenteeism, lower staff turnover, fewer mistakes, less loss of knowledge and greater trust between people and the organisation.
It is therefore important not to confuse productivity with intensity. Productivity does not mean working longer hours. It means creating more value through better use of time, knowledge, technology and human capabilities. If a task that once took eight hours can now be completed in six, the two remaining hours do not have to be used only to produce even more. Part of that gain can be returned to people as more time, greater flexibility, or better living conditions. Progress only truly becomes progress when it improves human existence.
This change does not necessarily weaken the economy. It can strengthen it. Rested people think better. People who feel more secure can concentrate, learn, and create better. Teams that trust one another communicate better. Organisations where people want to stay preserve knowledge, experience, and talent. Companies that do not systematically exhaust their employees reduce the costs of staff turnover, absenteeism, and lost capability. Humanity at work is not only a moral issue. It can also be an issue of economic effectiveness.
Artificial intelligence and automation make this discussion even more important. These technologies may significantly increase productivity across many activities and remove repetitive tasks. The question is what we choose to do with those gains. We can use them solely to increase output and margins, or we can also use them to reduce low-value tasks, decrease overload, shorten working hours in certain roles and free up time for those areas in which human presence remains essential: thinking, creating, relating, deciding, caring, teaching, leading and innovating. Technology can make work more human if we choose to use it for that purpose.
Humanising society also requires us to rethink education. For many years, we have treated school primarily as preparation for the labour market. But a child or young person is not merely a future worker. They are future adults, parents, partners, citizens, friends, neighbours, leaders, carers and members of a community. They need to learn how to think and work, but also how to understand themselves, build relationships, communicate, deal with conflict, understand emotions, cooperate, make decisions, distinguish influence from manipulation, care for their bodies, manage money, face adversity and continue learning throughout life. These abilities matter for a more human life and are equally fundamental to a modern economy in which creativity, adaptability, trust, communication and cooperation are becoming increasingly important.
Cities, too, can become more responsive to human needs. A city should not be merely an efficient space in which to move around, work and consume. It should be a place in which it is possible to live. That means more places to meet; more trees, gardens, and areas where children can play; more opportunities to walk; closer proximity between housing, work, schools, and services; more benches where an older person can sit; and more places where people can be without having to buy anything. The quality of a city cannot be measured only by how quickly we can cross it, but also by the quality of life we can have within it.
Ageing presents another challenge. We cannot accept as normal that people who have worked and contributed for decades should end their lives isolated, invisible or without support. We need community networks, housing that lets people grow older close to existing relationships, local services, places to meet, and a culture that does not treat old age as a period of withdrawal from social life. A human society recognises value at every stage of life, even when economic productivity declines. A person’s value does not disappear when they stop working.
The same principle applies to health, housing and security. A person who lives in constant fear of losing their home, who cannot access treatment when they are ill, or who spends much of their income simply meeting basic needs does not live in genuine freedom. Individual responsibility remains important, but it cannot excuse abandonment. A human society creates the minimum conditions that allow people to take responsibility for their own lives without being permanently crushed by insecurity.
None of this means creating a society without standards, merit, effort or ambition. It means recognising that these values must coexist with care, dignity, solidarity, trust and time to live. A society that cares for people better can also benefit economically from that choice. People with greater security and balance are often better able to learn, create, take risks, start businesses, collaborate and contribute. Humanity and the economy do not need to stand in opposition. A more human economy can also be stronger and more sustainable.
In this sense, love can be understood as a civilisational principle, not as sentimentality or an abstract ideal, but as a criterion for decision-making. To love, at the level of society, is to consider how our choices affect people’s lives. Giving time is a form of love. Creating the conditions for a mother or father to be present for a child is love. Refusing to exploit fear or vulnerability is love. Organising a company while recognising that employees have lives beyond it is love. Creating a school that sees a child before it sees a future professional is love. Enabling an older person to remain connected to the community is love. Building cities in which people can meet is love. Protecting someone going through a period of vulnerability is love.
Humanising society is, ultimately, about changing the question we ask. For too long, we have asked people how they can adapt better to the needs of systems. Perhaps it is time to ask those systems how they can adapt better to the needs of human life.
A truly advanced society will not simply be one that can produce more, innovate faster or develop more sophisticated technologies. It will be one that can use all of this to create better conditions in which to live, work, care, love, learn, participate and grow older with dignity.
Perhaps that is what real progress means: a society capable of creating wealth without impoverishing human life, an economy that is stronger because it is more human, and a civilisation conscious enough to understand that its development only makes sense when it helps human beings become more, not less, human.
This is precisely where H24, The Four Hearts of Human Leadership, meets this reflection. The book is grounded in the conviction that no society can become genuinely more human without people capable of living with greater awareness, freedom, authenticity, connection, responsibility, and wisdom. Humanising society therefore also requires us to humanise how each person feels, thinks, communicates, decides, and acts. Collective transformation does not replace individual transformation, just as individual transformation does not remove collective responsibility. H24 proposes this meeting point: developing more integrated human beings to make more human organisations, communities and societies possible.
H24, the book – books.by/manuelpelagio
Main sources
• World Health Organisation, From loneliness to social connection: charting a path to healthier societies, 2025.
• World Health Organisation, Mental disorders, 2026.
• World Health Organisation and International Labour Organisation, Long working hours and health, 2021.
• OECD, Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions 2026 Results.