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Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

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Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#121

Post by react_burger38 »

honkycat wrote: post #18

The US is a gerontocracy. We are going to end up exactly like Japan, a whole generation of young people passing on kids due to economic and environmental stress with no-one to replace them. The stats tell the story. Young people are the largest part of the workforce[0], but we work for lower wages and have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations[1]. The number of my friends who are hamstrung by…

> [we] have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations[1].

This is 100% true, especially compared to the home ownership rate of past generations at younger ages, 25-35.

The home ownership rate among people 25-34 and 35-44 now is significantly lower than a few decades ago.

[1]: https://www.zillow.com/research/homeownership-rate-us-housin... (from 2016 so could be a bit different, but still relevant) [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/homeownership-eludes-million...

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#122

Post by vcxy »

petra wrote: post #49
honkycat wrote: post #18

The US is a gerontocracy. We are going to end up exactly like Japan, a whole generation of young people passing on kids due to economic and environmental stress with no-one to replace them. The stats tell the story. Young people are the largest part of the workforce[0], but we work for lower wages and have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations[1]. The number of my friends who are hamstrung by…

So the economic situation in the US is not as amazing as it was before. So what ? Compared to the rest of the world, people in the US have it easy. Heck, in many places in the western world, people can't even afford to buy an apartment , which many in the US own or will own houses.

You're definitely right, but it doesn't change that, at least from the inside, the parent comment seems to be accurately describing the cognitive dynamic. I'm married and in my 30s. We aren't planning to have kids, we have no assets, my wife still has student debt (epidemiology is a bad field if you plan to work in the public sector), and with my "good" insurance, I can't afford dental work that I need related to growing up in poverty.

Despite this, we have super comfortable lives, as you say. We've jumped from trailer park, meth country poverty to truly living like we're in the middle class, something I think is way harder to do in other countries. But kids? No. That looks like a ticket right back to where we started.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#123

Post by yostrovs »

Afton wrote: post #55
veed99 wrote: post #47

Most 18-22 years waste 4 years in university not acquiring any skills that would help them in a competitive job market. As a result, they move back in with mom and dad at age 22, now thousands of dollars in debt.

What is your point? This seems pointlessly blame-y. Those who just graduated from high school and entered college have been told by figuratively-literally everyone that that is what they should do. Then they do it, and it turns out it is a terrible idea for a variety of reasons and there is an ill-timed pandemic that cuts off the few reasonable opportunities that they might have otherwise had. But sure, let's blame t…

When I was in college, just starting out, I knew that making money after college is important and that certain fields that may be interesting, such as literature and psychology, don't provide a clear path to making a living. This didn't seem a secret, but many of my colleague students explicitly waved off such concerns. They "didn't care about money". So I chose computer science and many of them went with anthropology and whatnot. The results were predictable and it was indeed their own fault to not care. Now that there's talk of cancelling student debt, it infuriates me that they might get off paying the justly earned debt doing fun things in college while I was coding memory management, and pulling my hair out, into the night.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#124

Post by ralusek »

watwut wrote: post #34
ralusek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I don't have a strong opinion about this, and I'm not making a claim that marriage is a good or a bad thing, I'm just answering your question. The usual argument that says that the government disincentivized marriage is through social safety nets like welfare, particularly ones that pay more for single parents without a spouse in the house, as well as mechanisms like child support payments. The usual arg…

Wait, marriage is disincentived because government is not forcing people to stay in it?

I'm not sure you read my comment, and if you did, you certainly didn't understand it.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#125

Post by redis_mlc »

mgh2 wrote: post #98
at_a_remove wrote: post #44

I have been taking care of my elderly mother, who would be vaguely defined as "not well" in the Southern sense of things, since my twenties. I did go into it with my eyes open, knowing the kinds of tradeoffs I was making. I could live alone, but this was a choice I made to help her. However, I was unprepared in the extreme for the ambient hostility toward men who live with their mothers, no matter the reason. I do no…

Is this stigma due to the tenet of "extreme independence and freedom" from the West? In most Asian countries, taking care of your parents is a filial obligation/responsibility deeply engrained in culture: an expectation for being a good child. It is starting to change now due to Western influence and affluence though...but it is still traditionally the norm to take care of your parents. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p…

For those Westerners dating Asians born in Asia, it's important to be aware of this difference in independence.

For Mainland China children, it is expected (ie. mandatory) that their parents will move in with them sometime after marriage. The inlaw is not thought of as a person, but as the parents' pension plan. So if you marry into a family like that, it's important you know the story beforehand.

(There's an old Chinese riddle about "Who would you save if your mother and wife fell in the river?" The only acceptable answer is "mother.")

For Filipinos, basically the same thing, except there was no "one child" policy as in China. However, their family is much more important than some outsider like you, so again, it's something you want to discuss and think about before getting involved.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#126

Post by watwut »

DeonPenny wrote: post #115
watwut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marriage does not make people wealthy at all. Instead, wealth makes people more likely to marry. People with real issues, whether mental or criminal or sick etcetc both don't marry and have significantly smaller income. People with issues divorce more often and have smaller income too.

Except for the fact that we know people with lower income become wealthier than peoeple with lower incomes. And we know that the poverty rate for married lower income people is twice as low as the poverty rate for singles.

> Except for the fact that we know people with lower income become wealthier than peoeple with lower incomes. And we know that the poverty rate for married lower income people is twice as low as the poverty rate for singles.

We dont know that.

Unmarried lower income people are more likely to have criminal record, more likely to have mental health issues, more likely to be the ones having hard time to keep jobs, more likely to have drugs related issues. Among women, those who got pregnant before marriage and much harder time to get any money and also are less interesting romance target for guys.

People nowdays see marriage as something you do once you are set by your standars and that strongly biases who marry.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#127

Post by epicureanideal »

flycaliguy wrote: post #116
at_a_remove wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as an example: one gal asked about my living situation, with regards to roommates. I was forthright about it, gave a little "what can you do?" shrug. I was a little startled as her vocal tone immediately changed to a mocking one as she delivered a "Awww, widdle at_a_remove wivves with his Mooo-mmy!" and then sneered. (Note that this person would describe herself as kind, liberal, thoughtful, and so on) Similarly…

The "I could never date..." girl could have been an opening to challenge her a bit. If you want to date more you just have to come up with some good zingers to counter their "shit-test".

But do you want to live your life passing tests?

At this point, I'd rather be alone the rest of my life than live a fake life passing tests.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#128

Post by epicureanideal »

at_a_remove wrote: post #64
Allenaz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that you got unlucky so far, everybody struggles with something at some point in time, the kind of people worth keeping near know and respect that.

After multiple decades without so much as a kiss, I think "luck" as a factor can be moved to the bottom of the list of explanations. Like I said, I went into it with my eyes open. I didn't expect anyone to give me a cookie or anything. It's just that the generalized hostility was unexpected.

I agree with you. In my experience, there is an infinitesimally small number of people interested in what I would consider healthy, kind, honest, fair relationships.

(Or at least, an infinitesimally small number that are not already in a long term healthy relationship. It may be that we've just missed the opportunity to meet the high quality people in our earlier years.)

I've had my share of relationships, and still date from time to time, but usually I find the experience disappointing.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#129

Post by dcolkitt »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #107
dcolkitt wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't think of a single thing government has done to "roadblock marriage". Land use restrictions, housing regulations, and zoning laws substantially increase housing costs. Affordable family formation is the major driver of marriage rates. Housing costs are the primary component of affordable family formation.

There are plenty of places where you can find affordable housing in the US. Are marriage rates the same there?

Marriage rates are substantially higher in the cheap housing Southeast, Midwest and Texas than they are in the Northeast and West Coast.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#130

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #129
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of places where you can find affordable housing in the US. Are marriage rates the same there?

Marriage rates are substantially higher in the cheap housing Southeast, Midwest and Texas than they are in the Northeast and West Coast.

The marriage rate isn't different enough across these states to justify the argument of housing. In fact, most places where housing is cheapest isn't the place where marriage rates are higher than the national rate.

Oregon and Washington outperform many southeastern states, in fact they surpass every southeastern state, according to the US census. And while N-E and CA do have a lower marriage rate, it isn't that much lower.

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