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

bloomberg.com

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

#441

Post by walugipnts »

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…

I’m 35 and burnt out by working almost nonstop since I was 14… I have something to show for it, but I don’t care anymore and would rather live like your nephews.

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

#442

Post by yaitsyaboi »

grawprog wrote: post #420
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…

I've worked a bunch of jobs over the years where i've ended up being in the homes of a lot of middle class - upper class people, not that it doesn't happen with working class people too, but anyway a common thing i would see was young men my own age or older living at home with their parents, not employed. I remember one lady in particular tried desperately to see if we could get her son a job. He'd taken a crane ope…

As a person who is in this age range and in essentially the opposite position--my disabled mother and college age sister live with me in coastal California--the kind of thing you're describing with the guy who wouldn't come out of the room is bonkers. I know this kind of person exists as an archetype but between your anecdote and the article I'm just baffled at the apparent prevalence.

I guess part of it is the fact that my circumstances didn't even make that lifestyle an option. By my late teen years it was increasingly obvious that I had to go in the kind of direction I did if I wanted my family to have a decent life. If I had a middle class nuclear family, is it likely that I would've tore through CS classes and leetcode as much as I did? I kinda doubt it.

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

#443

Post by paulpauper »

harryh wrote: post #411
toomuchtodo wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But who raises the next generation under that scenario? Immigrants, of course, but what does that say about what American society has become? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/24/will-birt... (Will births in the US rebound? Probably not.) People respond to incentives. Living and having children in the US is expensive, so the results are what you’d expect. Maybe we don’t need replacement rate, except f…

except for the part of an economic system that requires unending growth This is such a tired phrase. Like if we had socialism or communism or some other -ism it wouldn't matter. But that's just not true. The issue is math and the fact that prime age working people (25-55ish) are the ones that, for the most part, make stuff. If you have a shrinking population then the % of the population that makes stuff gets a lot sm…

I don't think we even need to settle for reduction. The US economy as measured by GDP and other metrics has surpassed countries with higher pop growth rates, especially since Covid. It does not matter if the % who makes stuff shrinks if productivity goes up.

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

#444

Post by _fhnu »

nxc18 wrote: post #394
paulpauper wrote: post #382

I don't think it's a tragedy. The overly dramatic media and pundits get this all wrong in labeling it such. Young people are simply responding to incentives to live at home longer. Living expenses keep going up relative to inflation and wages, such as home prices, rent, insurance, etc. Living at home is a good way save money, even for the employed. Family formation is expensive and fraught with risks such as divorce…

The problem comes in when their parents die and they have no path to supporting themselves. Not everyone has an inheritance to look forward to. Living at home and working isn’t really a problem, but entering the labor force at 40+ is not going to go well.

They won't be entering the labor force at 40+. Without some kind of disability benefit that keeps them housed and fed, they'll end up living out of a car or a tent, playing games on a phone they charge by running the engine on the camp Winnebago. Bloomberg will run articles about how cars, tents and gasoline are holding them back from participating in the economy.

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

#445

Post by paulpauper »

pcbro141 wrote: post #331
belorn wrote: post #269

What are the things that motivates them, and what do they themselves want to do in life? I ask this because much of the undertone in the article and in this thread is about the failure of meeting the gender role expectations that are put on young men. Do they have a job and a car? Have they studied hard so they can get a good job in order to support a wife and kid? Culture in the last several decades have hammered do…

On a related note, on mainstream TV/articles about declining marriage/birthrates in the West, it's common to see criticisms about modern Western men. How women can't find life partners because men aren't masculine enough anymore, don't want to grow up, don't get educated etc. But very rarely do you see any criticism or even questioning about modern Western women and what men want in a woman. Only what women want. The…

i agree 100% that the conversation is one-sided.

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

#446

Post by djspiro »

nradov wrote: post #358
tetranomiga wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said, in a time of record unemployment and low wages that are impossible to live off of. Almost like there are other factors at play here than just men being lazy. HN loves to forget that not everybody can be a FAANG employee or has the desire to sit in front of a computer writing code their whole lives.

Bullshit. Oklahoma has a 4% unemployment rate and a very low cost of living. Some other states are similar. Anyone who's willing to show up and work hard can survive there.

So from living to surviving. Its nice to live in your society.

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

#447

Post by yaitsyaboi »

tristor wrote: post #305

This thread is full of people talking about cultural, societal, and economic factors that may influence this outcome. I've yet to see anyone mention the factor that I wish we more thoroughly investigated: health. This has been discussed in some articles at length, but we still haven't identified primary causes, but testosterone levels are falling in men (at a given age) at a pretty steady pace year over year. This is…

The article actually addresses this in the final sentence:

“Nearly half of prime age men who are not in the labor force take pain medication on any given day; and in nearly two-thirds of these cases, they take prescription pain medication.”

I think more prominent than the soybeans/BPA/microplastics kind of causes is just plain old opioid dependence.

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

#448

Post by krastanov »

harryh wrote: post #411
toomuchtodo wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But who raises the next generation under that scenario? Immigrants, of course, but what does that say about what American society has become? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/24/will-birt... (Will births in the US rebound? Probably not.) People respond to incentives. Living and having children in the US is expensive, so the results are what you’d expect. Maybe we don’t need replacement rate, except f…

except for the part of an economic system that requires unending growth This is such a tired phrase. Like if we had socialism or communism or some other -ism it wouldn't matter. But that's just not true. The issue is math and the fact that prime age working people (25-55ish) are the ones that, for the most part, make stuff. If you have a shrinking population then the % of the population that makes stuff gets a lot sm…

What about the scifi trope of robots making things? After all the productivity of a single human has been skyrocketing for more than a century now. I do not which -ism that is. Somewhere between socialism and startrekism I guess.

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

#449

Post by lotsofpulp »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #435
toomuchtodo wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But who raises the next generation under that scenario? Immigrants, of course, but what does that say about what American society has become? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/24/will-birt... (Will births in the US rebound? Probably not.) People respond to incentives. Living and having children in the US is expensive, so the results are what you’d expect. Maybe we don’t need replacement rate, except f…

Historically, only a % of the population ever reproduced. About the same as do today. The difference is that the couples that do have children, have much fewer children. 2, instead of 4. We need to look at the costs faced by couples with a lot of children. For example, you can accommodate 2 children in a standard 3 bedroom house, but 4 or 5 children are going to need a much larger and more expensive dwelling. Same th…

> We need to look at the costs faced by couples with a lot of children. For example, you can accommodate 2 children in a standard 3 bedroom house, but 4 or 5 children are going to need a much larger and more expensive dwelling. Same thing with cars.

Per modern standards. A whole bedroom per child is still today only an amenity that relatively richer people have, especially in desirable areas.

I also wonder how many women chose to have 4 kids. It might have just been an unfortunate byproduct of sex, but now it’s completely controllable. And after seeing what my wife went through in 2 completely normal pregnancies with no complications, you would have to offer me some serious cash if I was a woman to go through that.

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

#450

Post by foobar33333 »

walugipnts wrote: post #441
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…

I’m 35 and burnt out by working almost nonstop since I was 14… I have something to show for it, but I don’t care anymore and would rather live like your nephews.

I was able to move out after 5 years working as a software developer and my bf also getting a full time developer job. But I recognize I am in the top few % at my age and would not blame anyone for staying with their parents for longer. Especially if they were building up savings to help them in life.
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