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Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

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Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#111

Post by AlwaysRock »

runawaybottle wrote: post #62
AlwaysRock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a buddy in a similar situation. We all came from somewhat similar backgrounds and all majored in the same, useless, thing. We lived together and while we all played a lot of video games one of the three never really moved on from that. He's still working at a low wage job behind a counter and playing video games a lot. I think it's less that he doesnt know different but more that he never got a break in the…

It’s also a form of perfectionism. I deal with exactly what you are describing with a family member of mine. A part of his problem is that, I shit you not, I sincerely believe he thinks he is too good for a labor/service job, or community college, or coursera, or the gym, dating someone not perfect, etc. It didn’t go his way for so long, but the ego is still there. And what is the ego exactly if not an intense defens…

For sure. I have met a few people who have these weird expectations around who they are and what they expect from life. As far as I'm concerned I'm playing with house money. I got lucky.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#113

Post by UncleOxidant »

I've got two nephews aged 34 and 32 who still live at home and play video games all the time and rarely leave their rooms. Neither has ever had a job that lasted more than a month or so. Neither ever learned to drive even though they live in a town with little or no public transit. They haven't had any education beyond high school. They seem wholly unprepared to navigate life without their parents. It's a slow motion tragedy.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#114

Post by lazypenguin »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #39
CydeWeys wrote: post #36

Part of this problem is our societal failure to build enough housing to keep up with the increasing number of people, with a resulting increase in housing costs that has significantly outpaced the median wage. If you can't afford to live on your own, and can't afford housing where the jobs are located, then you're more likely to live with your parents and be unemployed.

Adding to this, we've also abandoned the idea of building out in the middle of nowhere and linking it to a city center with a rail line. I'd gladly buy a cheap home in the boonies if I could take a train into work instead of driving.

That’s an interesting observation. I’ve always heard the argument that we need “more density” but I like this option as well.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#115

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #82
kypro wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We seem to live in an age of such abundance and freedom that it's now possible to live in all manner of ways which seems to exacerbate these extremes. In the past if you were a man and wanted to eat and have a home you had to work. We also relied far more on children to look after us in our old age than we do today. Today welfare and the affordability of essentials like food make it possible for people not to work an…

Where is this socialist paradise that you speak of where you can have a home without working? There is nowhere like what you are saying. It is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Affordability of essentials has become so much worse that many people can't afford to live a decent life with their own home even if they are working the jobs that they can actually acquire. These people aren't privileged because th…

> Where is this socialist paradise that you speak of where you can have a home without working?

Finland, for example. "Home", of course means a simple flat in a housing block and there might be a waiting list, but housing every single one of its people regardless of employment has been something that the state has sought for a long time.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#116

Post by ravenstine »

vidanay wrote: post #104

I really wish this stigma against living "at home" would go away. Multigenerational homes has been the standard for thousands of years, and still is in large portions of the world.

I both agree and don't at the same time.

On one hand, there shouldn't be anything shameful about living "at home", especially if it's purposeful. (looking back, it probably would have made sense to stay with my folks even longer than I did in order to save more money)

Yet living at home and not building anything into late adulthood tends not to be a good way to generate intergenerational wealth. Until the international economic paradigm changes, I can't see how it's a good thing for people to have nothing to pass on to their children.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#117

Post by danans »

lazypenguin wrote: post #114
BitwiseFool wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to this, we've also abandoned the idea of building out in the middle of nowhere and linking it to a city center with a rail line. I'd gladly buy a cheap home in the boonies if I could take a train into work instead of driving.

That’s an interesting observation. I’ve always heard the argument that we need “more density” but I like this option as well.

We do need density at the end of that rail line - dense towns connected to a dense metropolitan hub via a fast rail line. For example Ann Arbor to Detroit, Davis to Sacramento (neither of which have fast rail lines to connect them).

What we've built instead for more than half a century is continuous radiating sprawl.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#118

Post by heroHACK17 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #113

I've got two nephews aged 34 and 32 who still live at home and play video games all the time and rarely leave their rooms. Neither has ever had a job that lasted more than a month or so. Neither ever learned to drive even though they live in a town with little or no public transit. They haven't had any education beyond high school. They seem wholly unprepared to navigate life without their parents. It's a slow motion…

Did we just become best friends?

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#119

Post by jokethrowaway »

cashewchoo wrote: post #15
nodejs_rulez_1 wrote: post #5

We failed to bring up a generation of girls willing to be providers to a stay-at-home husband.

I know this is bait, but I want to provide my experience as counter-example. I went to a STEM college where anyone who graduates could quite reasonably expect to be able to build themselves a middle-class career, live comfortably, and perhaps even have some economic mobility (moving from middle-class to upper-middle, mainly...). There weren't a lot of women there, and you would expect that what women were there would…

I think you and the parent don't disagree too much, but parent was trying to be funny.

I loved that feminism gave a choice and legitimised working women - but it also broke down the family structure (+divorces and unstable families - which statistically raise less successful people) and having twice the workforce heavily depressed wages' purchasing power so that now families need two working parents to survive.

I think the result for the next generation will be a demographics crash and hopefully what comes next is not reminiscent of the Handmaid's Tale.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#120

Post by mynameisash »

Romulus968 wrote: post #54

I'm in the labor force, but live at home. I can absolutely afford to purchase a home. Why don't I? Because I'm not spending $250,000+ on 1400sq ft. These types of articles make it seem like some huge mystery as to why society is the way it is today. It's no mystery. Houses cost to much and employers don't pay enough.

When my wife and I bought our house (Seattle area) six years ago, I was uneasy about spending $300k, and my family in the Midwest was aghast that we paid asking price.

Anyone in this area would now laugh at my previous situation; I certainly do. We briefly considered buying a slightly larger house in the area, but everything is going for about $800k now.

If I were just entering the job and housing market today here in the PNW, I would absolutely stay with my parents if I could. And I rather expect that my kids won't move out at 18.

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