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Brain Drain Across the United States

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Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#141

Post by blub »

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/…

I have several friends which had kids in Germany:

* Mothers are protected from firing once they announce the pregnancy. There are still stupid people which fire them and put pressure on them. A friend's boss threw a fit because several of his employees got pregnant and actually said he won't hire women any more. That was likely just blowing off steam, but still.

* The mother can take 12 or 24 months off, but gets the same amount in both cases. The pay is capped at 1800 EUR / month, so if she earns well she'll lose a ton of money.

* The time off can be shared between parents, but all my acquaintances decided that the father should only take a couple of months off, in order not to lose even more money and affect the careers of both parents.

Family doesn't seem to be compatible with the hyper-competitive job market.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#142

Post by screye »

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/…

And paternity leave too.

Nothing helps a woman reenter the work force better than a husband who can take some time off to take care of the toddler.

Reestablishment of traditional family structures where grand parents pitch in as free day care may also have a large positive effect.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#143

Post by crushcrashcrush »

michelpp wrote: post #32
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 1000% Oh, you have an MBA? Guess I’ll have to show you how this works.

It could be a learning experience for you both. For example, they could teach you about percentages.

The autism is strong with you.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#144

Post by blub »

jasonkester wrote: post #140
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…

Perhaps educated people are better at realising that 40 is a “reasonable age” to have children, while 24 is not. Raising kids after 15 years of extra life experience, savings, and career advancement sure does make having kids easy. It was pretty straightforward in my experience but I couldn’t imagine how I would have pulled it off back when I was trying to scrape together some savings with my entry level job and tiny…

Biologically, 40 is a bad age to have kids at. The risk of Down syndrome and other diseases increases by a lot with each passing year in the 30s and it's anyways harder to conceive. Pregnancies over 35 are considered risky and are monitored much more closely.

Having kids early is problematic because of the changing economic factors: job uncertainty combined with families moving for jobs and not being able to rely on grandparents for help. But the 20s are the perfect biological age range to have kids in.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#145

Post by burfog »

uneasy-sausage wrote: post #66

So Ive got to ask, and I've failed to find answer through research for this question, where the hell are all the educated young people at? I'm 28 and relocated to Tampa Bay and I have no idea where my cohorts are here or in this state.

Tampa is old retired people and the US Navy.

You want the other side of the state, near the middle of Brevard county. It's a bunch of engineers working for DoD and NASA contractors.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#146

Post by blub »

solatic wrote: post #138
phamilton wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can't really tell American business culture to be less competitive. You might as well try to get Klingons to be less war-happy. If you're going to try to improve the situation for women, you have to work within the system as it exists. The best hope is improving remote work and improving transportation infrastructure. Women don't have to leave jobs that they can do from home, and client visits are less impactful…

Taking care of a kid is a full time job during the first years. Many partly outsource it after year 1. :)

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#147

Post by mch82 »

phamilton wrote: post #117
shmageggy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Career trajectories aren’t linear, especially after the first 2-3 years. Lots of factors impact career growth & skills development.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#148

Post by C4K3 »

cageface wrote: post #105
landryraccoon wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that local governments and communities acting in their own self interest will rationally underfund education. Let's say that hypothetically all new science and engineering jobs are all in ScienceVille. In that case, any local government that doesn't receive some direct tax benefit from taxes collected in SV has negative incentive to teach their students anything about Science, since those students will…

Japan has an interesting approach to this problem. I don’t remember the details but they have some mechanism to funnel tax revenues from big urban areas to the smaller cities that provide a lot of their educated workforce.

Hometown tax

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hometown_tax

Its implementation is flawed though, citizens can freely pick any city even if they have no relation to it, and cities are allowed to give gifts to citizens who choose the city, resulting in cities competing to offer the best kickbacks.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#149

Post by jonathankoren »

md224 wrote: post #52

Whenever I see this topic come up, I think back to the climactic speech in the movie Good Will Hunting, the one where Chuckie excoriates Will for wanting to put down roots in the community he grew up in. He concludes: "It'd be an insult to us if you're still here in 20 years. Hangin' around here is a fuckin' waste of your time." This was framed as an inspirational moment that finally pushed Will to achieve his potent…

An early memory of mine is when my mother told me that there was no future for me in Southern Illinois, and when I grew up, I’d have to move far away.

She was right. I did, right to the Bay Area. When I go back and visit, the area has gotten more economically depressed, and frankly more stereotypical. And to put a cherry on top, I am completely unemployable there.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#150

Post by throwaway441 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #33
geofft wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an entirely fair point—there's a fair amount of brain drain that can be attributed to "I don't want to live in a red state." The LGBT thing is anecdotally true in my experience, and in particular, leaving your home state for college is a good socially-acceptable excuse to leave your home state and meet others you suspect are like you at exactly the same time that you're no longer a minor under your parents' c…

Sick leave, parental leave, legal marijuana, assisted suicide, non compete bans, better environmental protections, pro choice, are all desirable to the young people I know and red states go the other way on those policies.

> pro choice [...] are all desirable to the young people I know

Interestingly, unlike the other issues you've listed, pro-choice support does not vary a whole lot by age. 63% support from 18-29, 59% for 30-59, and about 57% for everyone older than that (https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-aborti...) Whatever causes the difference on that issue is not due to age.

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