Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force • Hacker News Board

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#141

Post by anon9001 » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #124

anon9001 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some are living in their parents basement until they're 30 to 40. I understand this is considered a bad thing, and it makes sense at a societal level, but honestly it sounds like a pretty amazing life. Maybe that would have been boring and depressing pre-internet, but it seems pretty good now. I know one dude who essentially grifted his way into the disability system, and I've watched him go from an anxious mess to…

>Maybe we need an acceptable way for people who can't mentally handle work to be able to exist in society. agreed. in america, the "acceptable way" is rapidly becoming suicide. of course, it's unacceptable. but that's what we've left people with.

Is there an acceptable way anywhere?

I can understand suicide rather than work, but that only takes you as far as "not working". I want to get to "not working so I can follow my passions".

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#142

Post by Freestyler_3 » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

edgarvaldes wrote: post #132

phkahler wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> What are men doing if not working? On disability? Homeless? Retiring earlier? Some are living in their parents basement until they're 30 to 40. It has been hypothesized that with the breakdown of families in the US, men are giving up, and that includes efforts to build a stable foundation for their family. See MGTOW but dont read too much, it can be kind of depressing.

Non-american here so pardon my ignorance: Why is "basement" so common in this case? I mean, the whole "living with parents" and the basement thing.

I think it comes from the trend where the storage basement got converted to a room for the older kid.

Providing a big room and privacy for parents and kids.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#143

Post by Ohn0 » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #131

nkkollaw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women tend to choose jobs that pay less. They're on average more interested in people, so they tend to choose to become nurses, teachers, etc., while men are interested in things and become software developers, engineers, etc. I have no idea why income HAS TO be distributed equally. Unless you want to force women to become software developers..? But why.

One problem I see with this is your example of nurses. Women went into nursing in the past frequently because it was open to them, and being a doctor wasn't. That's changed, and now the only reason to be a nurse is because the educational requirements are much lower, and consequently, there's a shortage of nurses because who wants to do that instead of being a doctor and making more money, unless they don't want to s…

Unless there's lots of well-known material that I'm unaware of... there seems to be a lot of mind-reading going on here. How can you know what drives people's thinking and decision making?

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#144

Post by nightski » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

claudiulodro wrote: post #35

nightski wrote: post #17

I don't have data to back this up, but it's something I am now going to try to research. However I feel that there is a slight trend away from your traditional payroll job into independent small business careers (youtuber, blogger, streamer, freelancer, etc..). I'm curious how that affects these numbers.

I'm pretty sure self-employed people count towards those numbers, unless they're making hobby-level income. What's your theory, though? I don't follow what exactly you're getting at? Which gender is supposedly better at those endeavors? Are there a ton of men trying to be successful online entrepreneurs and not making any money so they don't get counted in the workforce stats?

No I'm just saying that the traditional methods of using employment statistics may be based on outdated assumptions.

They specifically say "payroll positions" in the article so that would leave me to believe it does not include self employed individuals.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#145

Post by anotherman554 » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

edgarvaldes wrote: post #132

phkahler wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> What are men doing if not working? On disability? Homeless? Retiring earlier? Some are living in their parents basement until they're 30 to 40. It has been hypothesized that with the breakdown of families in the US, men are giving up, and that includes efforts to build a stable foundation for their family. See MGTOW but dont read too much, it can be kind of depressing.

Non-american here so pardon my ignorance: Why is "basement" so common in this case? I mean, the whole "living with parents" and the basement thing.

While the expression is living in your parent's basement, I don't think the kids are literally living in the basement unless the parents happen to have a home with a nice finished basement which is nicer to live in than an upstairs bedroom. It's just an expression.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#146

Post by iagovar » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

hadesenia wrote: post #125

tomp wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "sexist history", it's just that men are better at (almost all) sports. Male football is simply more exciting to watch (I imagine, for broader audiences... it's boring to me, in general). For modeling, it's the reverse.

How is men’s soccer more exciting to watch rather than woman’s soccer? It’s literally people kicking a ball around. Does the ball explode if you are a man and kicking it?

Well, I can tell the difference. Men look more aggressive and professional overall. I mean, the US women national team lost to kids etc, so you tell me.

We have some women teams here in Spain, and while there's some movement in the league honestly it feels... like watching amateurish football. I guess they need time to catch on, but meanwhile it's not very appealing.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#147

Post by syshum » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #19

deeg wrote: post #3

I find this fairly astounding. The typical stay-at-home parent is the mother and while it's getting closer to parity I don't think it's anywhere near even. For that reason alone I would expect more men in the work force. What are men doing if not working? On disability? Homeless? Retiring earlier?

>> What are men doing if not working? On disability? Homeless? Retiring earlier? Some are living in their parents basement until they're 30 to 40. It has been hypothesized that with the breakdown of families in the US, men are giving up, and that includes efforts to build a stable foundation for their family. See MGTOW but dont read too much, it can be kind of depressing.

Not all men that have chosen not to have a family are "living in their parent's basement" or have "given up" on life.

I made the choice about 20 years ago to never marry, and never have children. I own my home, have an amazing career full of growth and future potential and currently am in the top 20% of wage earners.

Had I made a different choice 20 years ago I likely would be married with 2 kids right now, and be making significantly less income likely living paycheck to paycheck struggling to pay rent

What is depressing to me is the belief that family is the only way to have fulfillment in life, and if you choose not to have children you have "given up" on life

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#148

Post by scarmig » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #56

danbolt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Esther Perel's thinking[1] that the next century is going to involve a broadening on what society deems a positive life is for straight, cis men. In the same way that we consider it acceptable for women to express themselves or live differently than the gender roles of the past, I think we'll start to do the same for men. I already see this with my millennial or genZ peers. It's not uncommon to read comm…

I admit that I haven't read much on the subject, but it feels to me that, at least in American society, it has long been considered more acceptable for men to have various social arrangements than for women. My impression is that it's considered far more acceptable for a man to be working and unmarried well past the average marriage age than for a woman. Compare the words "bachelor" and "spinster."

> it's considered far more acceptable for a man to be working

That last word is the key point. Men receive less judgment for remaining single than women, but they also receive more judgment if they don't work. That's a reason we're much more willing to code an unemployed or underemployed man as a "loser" than we are to do so a woman.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#149

Post by swalsh » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #108

Enginerrrd wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but historically large numbers of unemployed young men has not been a good thing for societal stability.

India and China both have a problem with large numbers of unemployed or under employed young men. I bring that up because recently there has been lots of talk about WWIII, but many people say that China, for example, would stay out of it. But, what if they saw it as a solution to their abundance of young men problem? Yikes.

I think it's a very reasonable concern, making matters worse their one child policy has shifted the demographic towards a higher percentage of men. In Polygamous societies, civil war is very frequent (meaning men without a chance to find a woman find ways to vent often through violence). Add to that, Chinia is a very fragile state economically. Their banks are extremely overleveraged. This is a historically dangerous situation, and that's not even accounting for the newly minted authoritarian dictator.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#150

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #107

danbolt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very true. We definitely are more lenient towards people in different ways depending on their gender, and there are a lot of relaxed social expectations that men have compared to women. Still though, I think there are dimensions of this where this is less true, perhaps in ways that men are expected to seem "confident" or "strong" or "independent" which I think can be stiffing. The typical men's section of a cl…

>perhaps in ways that men are expected to seem "confident" or "strong" or "independent" which I think can be stiffing. Yep, and women demand this too: many women's dating profiles talk about how they want a guy who's "confident but not cocky", who "makes a plan" for dates, who "takes the lead", etc. Basically, American women want hyper-masculine men who look like George Clooney (when younger), but then they sit aroun…

> Men basically have the choice of either a stuffy suit that look like it hasn't changed in a century and is completely impractical, or baggy pants and a baggy hoody.

I don't wear either of these on a daily basis, nor my birthday suit, and people think that I dress nice. Men have a plethora of clothing options that are stylish, comfortable, and appropriate for work situations. I'm currently wearing slacks that are designed to feel like sweat pants and a thick cotton button up shirt.

Women have it pretty bad when it comes to clothes shopping. Men take for granted that we all are roughly the same shape, so most of us can shop at the same stores. It's not like that for women.

Women come in many different shapes. So you look and see that a clothing store has twice as many jeans for women as they do for men, but don't realize that all of those are split over four or five styles that are mutually exclusive: most women can only fit into one, maybe two styles. But for men, most of us can wear slim fit, regular fit, bootcut, etc jeans.

This same phenomenon extends to stores as well. Lots of women's clothing brands specialize in a certain shape of woman.