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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

#481

Post by imtringued »

kogepathic wrote: post #17
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #7

I see this on the fringes of those within my circle of friends. I know one man in this age cohort who doesn't seem to have a job, just plays video games all the time, and I don't get it. But one thing I think about is what he has been exposed to: this is what he knows. I don't think this individual I'm speaking of was raised with anything differently. In this same light, as I believe the two concepts are directly rel…

> another friend of mine basically refuses to date anymore because he thinks the sort of culture of Tinder dating is a waste of time that favors women disproportionately. My female friends (I'm male) with online dating profiles have shown me their matches and conversations, and it's bleak. They all mostly have an average profile and still receive thousands of likes/hearts/swipes and messages, but the mean amount of e…

What would they do if every man spent 30 min writing a super long message that is drowned out by the other 1000 messages? They wouldn't spend the 2000 minutes it would take to skim all of them. I certainly would give up after 10 messages.

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

#482

Post by NortySpock »

username90 wrote: post #377
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Degrees don't make you marriage material. This gets said so much on fora with men who regard themselves as “redpilled”, but it makes no sense to me personally. As a bookish and arts-inclined person, so much of my worldview, the things that occupy my thoughts during the day, has been formed by the canon of literature, music, films. No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudi…

You studying social subjects that almost only women study is the exception, you can afford to be picky about this. Lots of guys would love to have a woman who shares their interest, but since so few women study technical topics they have to settle with women they have little in common with. And at that point whether they studied some social topic or no topic and did other stuff isn't high up on the list.

"so few women study technical topics"

I don't even know what to say to this. Is [picks from list] speech pathologist, dental hygienist, nurse, payroll clerk or hairdresser NOT a job that involves a fair amount of knowledge, training, and skill?

Just because it's not EE or CS doesn't mean there isn't a wealth of technical and scientific understanding (or even just an understanding of the legal environment) going on behind the scenes of a profession.

So you're probably not going to find a girl who has exactly the same job as you and wants to date you -- but if you ask them to explain their profession to you, you might just learn there's a lot going on under the hood.

"they have to settle with women they have little in common with"

Again, this is just a lack of imagination. I studied a bit of chemistry, my wife studied a lot of chemistry, we appreciate that chemistry is cool. Just because I went with computers and she went with medicine doesn't mean we have "little in common"; we just find other topics to geek-out about.

"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't." ― Bill Nye

[1] list was https://fourpillarfreedom.com/visualizing-u-s-occupational-e...

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

#483

Post by tristor »

mywittyname wrote: post #345
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…

Could be. But lack of exercise would also lead to low T, and I'm quite confident that middle aged man without a job who lives with parents aren't exactly staying fit.

I think there's still a lot of research to be done in this area, but most of what I've read shows that exercise has minimal impact on this (and on obesity) and for both, diet is a far larger contributing factor. That said, it's not even conclusive that diet has been the cause of lower T levels over the years. That's part of why it's so disturbing... we have this huge change in a core part of the biological basis of masculinity at the same time as we're seeing social shifts that seem affected by it (both positive and negative) and minimal research funding seems directed at these questions (although there's been enough research over the years that the preponderance of evidence really strongly points to plastics critically messing with our hormone balances as humans).

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

#484

Post by seppin »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #196
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…

I stumbled into a career. Our other buddy stumbled into a career. Talking to various people this seems to be very common. I know it was the case for me.

Careers, relationships, etc. No one wants to admit how much of their life was a random thing they just kept doing.

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

#485

Post by bigdollopenergy »

majormajor wrote: post #388
pcbro141 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What is what you believe men want in a woman, that's being unfulfilled for these men? The common male complaint I see isn't "all these women I date are simply not going to fulfill what I need," it's "no women will date me at all" which points at a breakdown in the process way before the point of "what are these men looking for." Hard to imagine these men even have any idea of what they're actually looking for in a re…

> Given that the vast majority breakups are initiated by women

I suspect what the poster meant to write was that most divorces are initiated by women. Which is a different statistic but still somewhat relevant. It's actually true, it's around 69% that are initiated by women. Here's the study i quickly found for it which seems credible https://www.asanet.org/press-center/press-releases/women-mor...

Interestingly it explicitly states that there's no large difference for non-marital relationships. So the poster is incorrect about breakups in general.

Speaking anecdotally from my own experience, there is a pervasive fear of marriage and raising children amongst men. Most believe that if you get divorced you'll be left destroyed financially and denied access to your children regardless of the circumstances and that getting divorced is extremely likely. Whether that's actually true or not, I don't actually know, but it's still widely believed and influencing men's behavior/plans all the same. I suspect that's a big factor in the frequency of men who don't seem to care about having their shit together. From my own observation of divorces within my extended family and those of my close friends, it does seem to be true to me. Many divorces I've been privy to, seem to almost always end with the man living a much lower standard of living by himself with restricted access to children, while the mother lives in the family home with a higher standard of living that the ex-husband pays for. Totally anecdotal of course, but it certainly makes me extremely cautious when considering marriage and it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of young men don't even consider it.

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

#486

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

ravenstine wrote: post #478
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Degrees don't make you marriage material. This gets said so much on fora with men who regard themselves as “redpilled”, but it makes no sense to me personally. As a bookish and arts-inclined person, so much of my worldview, the things that occupy my thoughts during the day, has been formed by the canon of literature, music, films. No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudi…

> Often the man claiming that men don’t care about a woman’s education, goes on to say that what matters is that the woman knows, for example, how to cook. That, too, has never made sense to me. I live in a country where for the childless, eating out good healthy food is not appreciably more expensive than cooking at home, and a woman who chooses to take advantage of that and use her valuable time for other pursuits,…

Sure, one can get intellectual stimulation from other men, but having an intellectual partner means one can have intellectual stimulation around the clock – if you think of something interesting at any hour of the day, you have someone to share it and discuss it with. I value my male friends, but you can't reasonably expect to see them more than a few hours a week, and many gradually fall away as they e.g. get bogged down in childrearing that no longer leaves them time for the intellectual things that once bound us together. Your feeling that the woman won't have time to provide companionship doesn’t necessary hold in this day and age when more and more people doing knowledge work are working remotely, so you might be sitting together most of the day.

Also, if one's particular interesting in learning extends to longterm travels, immersing oneself in foreign countries to study the languages or aspects of culture there, your male friends are probably not going to accompany you for more than a brief time. When people go on longterm travels, it is their partners that they rely on for companionship. (That holds, of course, for non-intellectual people traveling, too, as anyone in the bikepacking or overlanding scenes can tell you.)

For a bookish person, being in a relationship with a partner who merely has "good qualities", but who doesn't share that basic context, can mean feeling like one is not truly understood and there is a barrier between you. There is nothing worse than being in a relationship yet feeling alone.

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

#487

Post by username90 »

irowe wrote: post #390
jeofken wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Unforgiving” and “misogynistic” are words unrelated to whether something is true or false - just something to keep in mind

You’re absolutely correct, which is why I chose to phrase my post to say that the parent was taking a truth (women are increasingly choosing career over kids) and expressing it in what I consider to be bad faith. I don’t think that’s acceptable. I also seriously doubt that the claims about women not living up to some standard of attractiveness or femininity are true, misogynistic or not.

Why is it ok to blame men but not women though? Either we blame both or none. I'd say blame none. Ultimately on a population level you don't have lazy or cold, just politics with policies, incentives etc, so it doesn't make sense to blame anyone in particular. Instead of blaming just look at what policies would be more impactful for fixing the problems.

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

#488

Post by travisjungroth »

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 next generations are going to look at us like the Romans drinking from lead pipes. I think it's the weirdest time, chemically, when it comes to life on earth.

For anyone struggling with their health, check if hormone tests could fit in your budget. It may point to a problem or hint to look in a different direction.

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

#489

Post by spcebar »

thepasswordis wrote: post #291

Is anybody advocating for them or encouraging them in any way? I can’t think of a single group which aims to highlight men, uplift men, and encourage masculine behavior. These guys grew up in a school system of almost entirely women teachers, and popular media tells them that if they are successful in any way, it is due to oppression. It’s no wonder why they’re not succeeding. We spent the last 15 years telling them…

Your argument reads like Palahniuk's satircal message in Fight Club.

These concepts of masculinity our culture pines for are destructive and unproductive. A woman is no less qualified to raise a man than a man.

No one has told them their success is evil. You're conflating women being told their success is success with men being shunned. There's a perception that women and minority groups have somehow gained an advantage in the last 30 years. What they've gained is some measure of equality with white males who still earn more, are more likely to get jobs and aren't stigmatized for their existence. If you believe white males are stigmatized for their existence, consider the stereotypes, lack of representation, and abuse women and minority groups face on a daily basis.

If a man can only find a role model in a man with x testosterone level, we are in dire shape as a society.

--

Forgive typos, I'm on my phone.

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

#490

Post by ARandomerDude »

kypro wrote: post #48
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #7

I see this on the fringes of those within my circle of friends. I know one man in this age cohort who doesn't seem to have a job, just plays video games all the time, and I don't get it. But one thing I think about is what he has been exposed to: this is what he knows. I don't think this individual I'm speaking of was raised with anything differently. In this same light, as I believe the two concepts are directly rel…

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…

> For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousandfold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken; the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils immediately resulted from the prosperous condition of things.

Augustine, Civitate Dei

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