Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brain Drain Across the United States

jec.senate.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 213 posts

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#111

Post by reredacted »

balls187 wrote: post #86
defen wrote: post #51

Now, consider the "meta-brain-drain" of 1) increased assortative mating (people are increasingly more likely to marry someone of similar educational and professional achievement) and 2) college-educated women delaying childbirth and having fewer children than non-college-educated women. The net result is that more educated people tend to have fewer children than the less educated. If we assume educational attainment…

> This doesn't bode well for future generations. It hasn't impacted any generations thus far. Low income and/or poorly educated Americans have always had more children than higher income/well educated Americans. From back when health standards were terrible, to when having more kids meant more hands to work the farm. Yet society still has found a way not to collapse on itself.

"hasn't happened yet, therefore it never will"

Are you daft? Why are you even here?

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#112

Post by thaumasiotes »

ausbah wrote: post #61
defen wrote: post #51

Now, consider the "meta-brain-drain" of 1) increased assortative mating (people are increasingly more likely to marry someone of similar educational and professional achievement) and 2) college-educated women delaying childbirth and having fewer children than non-college-educated women. The net result is that more educated people tend to have fewer children than the less educated. If we assume educational attainment…

That sounds exactly like the plot of "Idiocracy" - people who aren't 'smart' are having more children then those who are 'smart' so society is ruined. How about trying to make education and other opportunities more accessible to the less educated instead of bashing them for having a couple more kids?

> How about trying to make education and other opportunities more accessible to the less educated instead of bashing them for having a couple more kids?

defen is (correctly) bashing the more educated for not having enough kids, exactly the opposite of the attitude you're imputing to him.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#113

Post by burlesona »

duxup wrote: post #88
burlesona wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the map backs up what you're saying. If you look at the 2017 Net Brain Drain it shows the following top gainers: - Texas - Virginia - Illinois - Maryland - Colorado - California - New Jersey - New York - Massachussets Georgia and North Carolina also showed strong gains (along with many other states). That may be blue-leaning but it's not a landslide. It's more like people are concentrating in the biggest…

You're picking states, but the report talks about moving to cities that tend to be blue.

My point is that all cities tend to be blue. Look at the electoral maps by county in the last several elections and it’s pretty stark: little blue islands in an ocean of red - but the blue dots are the big cities where about half the country lives.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#114

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

shmageggy wrote: post #74
defen wrote: post #51

Now, consider the "meta-brain-drain" of 1) increased assortative mating (people are increasingly more likely to marry someone of similar educational and professional achievement) and 2) college-educated women delaying childbirth and having fewer children than non-college-educated women. The net result is that more educated people tend to have fewer children than the less educated. If we assume educational attainment…

> It seems like we as a society need to figure out a way to make "have children at a reasonable age" not be a low-status move for highly educated / driven / intelligent women. Isn't the obvious answer better maternity leave laws? Ambitious women in the US don't have kids because it fucks their career. The US is literally last among OECD countries, offering zero guaranteed maternity pay [1]. [1] https://money.cnn.com/…

Experience is part of growth.

If you take 9 months off to raise a child, you're not growing your career -- regardless of wether your company or the state or a combination compensates you.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#115

Post by trabant00 »

defen wrote: post #51

Now, consider the "meta-brain-drain" of 1) increased assortative mating (people are increasingly more likely to marry someone of similar educational and professional achievement) and 2) college-educated women delaying childbirth and having fewer children than non-college-educated women. The net result is that more educated people tend to have fewer children than the less educated. If we assume educational attainment…

Maybe education _is_ the problem. Maybe we're teaching children that things like career and information hoarding are more important than family and living life in general. And maybe hyper specialized brains (almost computers) should stay in low numbers relative to the general population. Maybe we're just walking hard drives, full of "facts". Maybe we're not as smart as we think.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#116

Post by thekyle »

reredacted wrote: post #111
balls187 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This doesn't bode well for future generations. It hasn't impacted any generations thus far. Low income and/or poorly educated Americans have always had more children than higher income/well educated Americans. From back when health standards were terrible, to when having more kids meant more hands to work the farm. Yet society still has found a way not to collapse on itself.

"hasn't happened yet, therefore it never will" Are you daft? Why are you even here?

HN isn't a place for personal attacks. Try to be more polite.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#117

Post by phamilton »

shmageggy wrote: post #74
defen wrote: post #51

Now, consider the "meta-brain-drain" of 1) increased assortative mating (people are increasingly more likely to marry someone of similar educational and professional achievement) and 2) college-educated women delaying childbirth and having fewer children than non-college-educated women. The net result is that more educated people tend to have fewer children than the less educated. If we assume educational attainment…

> It seems like we as a society need to figure out a way to make "have children at a reasonable age" not be a low-status move for highly educated / driven / intelligent women. Isn't the obvious answer better maternity leave laws? Ambitious women in the US don't have kids because it fucks their career. The US is literally last among OECD countries, offering zero guaranteed maternity pay [1]. [1] https://money.cnn.com/…

One big part of this is that even if you have guaranteed maternity pay, it still hurts your career. In a highly competitive environment, I don't see how not working for X amount of time doesn't lead to being X amount of time behind in career growth.

The answer is to have less competitive environments. In Sweden, jantelagen (a cultural sentiment that discourages overt personal ambition) is a huge part of what enables generous leave policies.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#118

Post by Pokepokalypse »

opportune wrote: post #47

I’m from Kentucky, live on the west coast, and I cannot at all sympathize with those from there and similar states if they complain about brain drain. If you boast stupid, backwards policies and only give economic opportunities to the well connected, don’t be surprised when the intelligent but not well connected people leave the state. Maybe I’ll retire to my backwards hometown but I make more than double on the west…

Having moved from a rust-belt blue state; who had liberal policies (but. . . just failed to nurture their tech industry like other states did), I moved to California; for a richer employment opportunity.

In terms of skills I could learn on the job, there's no way I could have gone nearly as far in my career if I limited myself to the set of employers that were available to me in my hometown.

Now, I've moved to a red state, (for family reasons), and I have interviewed at about 20 different companies. The "tech industry" is very different from California. There's a little bit of a software startup industry growing, most of the jobs are in healthcare and financial IT. Nobody wants to pay people what they could earn elsewhere. And in terms of career paths there's not a lot out there that offers much of a future. (or at least it appears that way). None of these companies seem like they have any kind of vision other than general business continuity. It's a completely different experience than I had interviewing with tech companies in California.

Even worse: the company I did take a job at can't seem to retain talent. And when we look for it, we can't find it. (And when we find it - I implore them to make it worth the candidate's time. . . and HR simply responds about what the "market rate" is. - which is why I keep interviewing elsewhere. . . ).

In a nutshell; the main difference seems to be - technology companies in California are in the business to innovate, and create new technology, and to become industry leaders. Where, in my new state; they're in the business to just be in business.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#119

Post by sethhochberg »

SantalBlush wrote: post #63
refurb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh! The fastest growing states in 2018 were: Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Florida and Washington.[1] [1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/estimate...

That's percentage growth, not numeric growth. So while their population increase was largely due to national migration, those migration numbers didn't need to be very high because they don't have huge populations (except Florida).

Even in FL, anecdotally I know many people who moved there from CA or CO or NY not because they disliked the place they came from, but because they were forced out by influxes of _other_ people who made more money, drove cost of living up, etc. The sentiment is basically "Florida isn't as nice, but its cheap, so we make do because we have to." The brain drain from much of the rest of the country into a few small metro areas is forcing lots of middle-income people from those areas to migrate to cheaper places, and this would seemingly skew the numbers when you're looking at overall population migration.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#120

Post by tomkat0789 »

My brain drain story: I got a nice engineering degree in the South, even had a phd project supported by the local chemical plant. Why I left:

1. GF/now wife had advanced degrees, and there were no advanced opportunities for her in my area. She'd also have to leave the great opportunity she had in her big northern city.

2. The industry was randomly down when I graduated, so it didn't even make much sense to stay even without my wife's situation. I found a job in my wife's city where we're producing lots of tax income for one of the big gainers on this map.

I think a key lesson from my case is to not have the local economy dependent on one industry. The Gulf Coast is married to oil/chemicals, the Midwest was in heavy manufacturing, WV in coal. A more diverse local economy means all the married, educated couples can have an easier time finding careers for themselves without one side having to sacrifice and feel like they've wasted their huge educational investments.

Post reply on HN