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Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

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Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#151

Post by morgante »

humanrebar wrote: post #117

Family structure is actually huge when talking about poverty. First, poverty statistics comparing 1950 to today are more complex than they appear since the marriage rate has dropped a lot. There are more single-income households, so the average household income looks different though income might not have changed all that much. Second there is a very strong correlation between marriage rates in neighborhoods and pove…

It's worth reading the follow up on why marriage doesn't combat poverty: http://www.demos.org/blog/12/4/15/promoting-marriage-has-fai...

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#152

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #141
aeorgnoieang wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two related points: - 'Poverty' is (mostly) relative; as you point out, almost all of the even the poorest in the US are rich in comparison to the poor in other countries; and the poorest in the world today are relatively rich compared to the poor (and even not-poor) in the past. - It is illegal, inconvenient, and low-status to live or try to live, in the US, as the poor in India, or other poorer countries, do; e.g.…

It is illegal, inconvenient, and low-status to live or try to live, in the US, as the poor in India, or other poorer countries, do; e.g. authorities will evict tenants living in illegal housing (and prosecute their landlords), almost no one brings their small children to work with them, building/labor/etc. standards are much more stringent legally (and culturally). Sure - the net result of this is that American poor…

[deleted]

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#153

Post by sharemywin »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #126
sharemywin wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

correlation is not causation. Could another likely argument be that poverty creates more stress on a relationship and it's the other way around? poverty causes relationship problems? Also, minimum wage doesn't cover child care, so what's the point in having one partner working when it doesn't make economic sense?

That's a possible argument but it seems unlikely. If true, then a poor nation like India should have low marriage rates while a super rich one like the US should have high marriage rates. By Indian standards, everyone (including our very poor) is quite wealthy, so why do Indians do such a good job at getting and staying married while we don't? Compare also marriage rates and wealth over time - in the 50's marriage wa…

The number one argument in marriages are money.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#154

Post by sharemywin »

moron4hire wrote: post #133
yummyfajitas wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a possible argument but it seems unlikely. If true, then a poor nation like India should have low marriage rates while a super rich one like the US should have high marriage rates. By Indian standards, everyone (including our very poor) is quite wealthy, so why do Indians do such a good job at getting and staying married while we don't? Compare also marriage rates and wealth over time - in the 50's marriage wa…

I doubt one would ever be able to account for all the variables when comparing disparate cultures to try to determine causality on one issue.

trading places on a mass scale. Enter into a lotto were you could win all kinds of money or you could lose all your wealth.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#155

Post by josinalvo »

kdamken wrote: post #137
humanrebar wrote: post #117

Family structure is actually huge when talking about poverty. First, poverty statistics comparing 1950 to today are more complex than they appear since the marriage rate has dropped a lot. There are more single-income households, so the average household income looks different though income might not have changed all that much. Second there is a very strong correlation between marriage rates in neighborhoods and pove…

I would agree that family structure plays a huge part. Kids are expensive and take a lot of energy. As much as we as a society celebrate single moms, it's a tough gig to work full time and raise your kids alone. I don't think anyone would say it's the ideal family situation. One reason the marriage rate may be is dropping is that it's become fairly disincentivized for men. A lot of younger men (25-35) I know voice co…

The video cites 'a growing number of men' opting out of marriage (and work, and school). I'd like to see the source to this 'growing number'. Do you happen to know?

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#156

Post by jernfrost »

dharmach wrote: post #145
jernfrost wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a highly cultural phenomenon those which one can not generalize about. Nordic countries have low level of poverty AND marriage. But Nordic societies are much more accommodating towards such a situation, and so it doesn't cause the significant problems it does in the US. Laws and regulations make it much easier for mothers to have a job and raise kids. In the US the workplace is less accommodating and so many…

May be Nordic states are more sympathetic to single mothers because of the declining population. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/23...

That is simply not true. Nordic countries have among the highest population growth of the rich countries. Of course sympathy towards single mothers is part of the reason we never got the severe population decline seen in Germany, Italy and Japan e.g.

The map you show is hard for anybody who doesn't know anything about settlements pattern in various countries. Nordic nations are experiencing population fall in thinly populated remote areas. Because these are large areas, it looks more dramatic than it is.

People are leaving small towns with limited opportunities because they want to live in bigger cities with more variation in opportunities. Mind you limited opportunities doesn't mean there aren't jobs. It just that that young Norwegians and Swedes don't want to work in fishing and mining industry anymore. Often immigrants from eastern europe take over these jobs, saving many small communities from falling apart.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#157

Post by jernfrost »

LordKano wrote: post #20
Chinjut wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(And, yes: education can of course grant skills which are genuinely required for certain jobs. This being Hacker News, I suppose we'll hear that everyone should learn to code. I'm all for everyone getting to do whatever they wish to do, and if that wish is learning to code, so be it. But I suspect, if everyone did suddenly learn to code, we'd find that coding would, with corresponding suddenness, cease to be a ticket…

I hate the idea that some people seem to hold that teaching everyone to code will fix the world's problems. It won't. People who want to code, should learn to code. Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. We have a society that ne…

Most people today will end up in office jobs. Understanding how to automate tasks is a valuable skill.

You are wrongly assuming that anyone who codes is a developer. Lots of people code who aren't developers: physicists, mathematicians, engineers, technicians, statisticians, system administrators etc.

5-20 line programs can often be enough to save a lot of tedious work, wether it is a collection of unix shell commands, a complex spreadsheet formula, VB script or a visual programming tool like automator or labview.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#158

Post by morgante »

josinalvo wrote: post #155
kdamken wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that family structure plays a huge part. Kids are expensive and take a lot of energy. As much as we as a society celebrate single moms, it's a tough gig to work full time and raise your kids alone. I don't think anyone would say it's the ideal family situation. One reason the marriage rate may be is dropping is that it's become fairly disincentivized for men. A lot of younger men (25-35) I know voice co…

The video cites 'a growing number of men' opting out of marriage (and work, and school). I'd like to see the source to this 'growing number'. Do you happen to know?

The marriage rate is overall declining substantially. [0] It's hard to suss out the exact reasons for why, but one imagines that it's not only women choosing to opt out of marriage (especially since they stand to gain from marriage while structurally men are set up to lose).

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/144-y...

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#159

Post by UK-AL »

accnumnplusone wrote: post #95
Chinjut wrote: post #11

Well, yeah. Education increases individual income primarily through competitive advantage in the job market, right? But, also, the function of education in the job market is largely just as a certification arms race, right? Just a ritual we go through to compete for jobs that don’t actually make any use of or require our advanced educations, in most cases. So educating us all doesn’t produce many benefits, because th…

Two categories of developer on my team: life-long programmers, and people with two years of dev experience since their computing degree pushing their way into management. Why did the latter bother with that degree? And why are they muddling the dev team for their negligible experience?

Because development is one of the easiest entry points into the tech industry for people without connections.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#160

Post by CWuestefeld »

cokernel wrote: post #121
humanrebar wrote: post #117

Family structure is actually huge when talking about poverty. First, poverty statistics comparing 1950 to today are more complex than they appear since the marriage rate has dropped a lot. There are more single-income households, so the average household income looks different though income might not have changed all that much. Second there is a very strong correlation between marriage rates in neighborhoods and pove…

This is part of a three-part series of posts, one focused on education, one on work, and one on marriage. The author talks about marriage here: http://www.demos.org/blog/12/4/15/promoting-marriage-has-fai...

His argument here seems particularly weak. He seems to be saying "Scandinavia doesn't have this problem, and anyway, it's really hard to get more people to marry." I don't find that a very compelling argument.
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