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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

#601

Post by wouldChuckIt »

stemlord wrote: post #558
JoeyBananas wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely reject everything that you are saying. A grown man (or woman) who is dependent on their parents at that level has very serious problems because they are the equivalents of obese domestic dogs in a world full of wolves. Left to their own devices, they would have nothing. A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. They take it for granted that other…

>A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. I spent a mere year after college living with my parents, a very long and sad year, wondering if this was going to be the rest of my life. My next real job came somewhat out of sheer luck and I'm thankful for it because I could totally see myself having given up, still back there to this day, still having no idea how…

Made a throwaway for obvious reasons. I'm in the middle of that year right now. I was doing well - transferred from community college to a top university studying engineering. Perfect grades, several prestigious summer internships. Then I had a depressive episode. Grades went down the toilet, had to leave school. Spent a year getting my life back together, but the depression never really went away. I went back to school part time and was slowly finishing my degree, though never achieving at the same level as before. Things were kind of working. Then covid happened and the lockdown was basically a perfect storm that destroyed all of the fragile systems I had created to get by. Got kicked out of school this time. Now I'm in my late 20's, with no degree and no relevant job experience, sitting in my old bedroom and trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life. From where I am now it really does feel like this is going to be the rest of my life. I can't speak for anyone else, but playing video games or watching youtube all day is the absolute last thing I want, but it feels like just about the only thing I can do right now, and at least it's a distraction from all of the opportunities that are now out of reach.

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

#602

Post by MSM »

username90 wrote: post #587
jdgoesmarching wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of validity to the social struggles of men in a lot of online discourse, but to say “society“ punishes us for not being women flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success. Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically. Buying into that victim complex is a distraction from your own self-development and healing.

Most kids spends their first 15 years mostly surrounded by women. Their doctors, their kinder garden teachers, their school teachers etc. Almost every authority figure is a woman there. If those boys have problem I feel it is ok to say that it is mostly those grownups fault, and they happen to be mostly women.

The only way that you can be surrounded by women for your entire upbringing is if you don't engage in sports. Sports are typically hours per day. Coaches are absolute authority figures, and there are very few female coaches.

I can't think of any men that never played sports but are somehow punished for being "so masculine"

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

#603

Post by username90 »

acdha wrote: post #594
username90 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most kids spends their first 15 years mostly surrounded by women. Their doctors, their kinder garden teachers, their school teachers etc. Almost every authority figure is a woman there. If those boys have problem I feel it is ok to say that it is mostly those grownups fault, and they happen to be mostly women.

This is a weirdly sexist take: to give yourself license to blame women, you’re erasing all of the men in those kids’ lives. For example, most of them have fathers and uncles, and while there’s a gender skew teaching in younger grades it’s not absolute and you’re leaving out the skew in the other direction for administrators and older grades - and if you’re talking authority figures you should be talking about princip…

Kids spends their whole days getting bossed around by teachers. Kids usually doesn't even know who the dean or administrators are, those aren't authority figures to kids. And I choose 15 years as the cut-off since that is roughly when you start seeing male teachers.

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

#604

Post by BeFlatXIII »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #312
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…

> What are the things that motivates them, and what do they themselves want to do in life? I suspect quite a few people are looking at the odds of achieving various goals, and simply changing the goals. Such as owning a home in desirable areas, or having kids if you cannot afford a food school district or a job that allows you to be home for dinner. Or if you have experienced income instability, and you do not feel c…

That’s about how I ended up at having zero interest in raising children. Back when I was still with an ex, I was ambivalent about children. They were in the “probably will happen but I have no concrete plans to change my life to accommodate them just yet” bucket. Said ex had a sudden shift in heart and realized she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom after all while we were discussing whether to get married or not. She was also one of my many classmates who should have said “college is a waste of your time and your dime” when calculating how many student loans would be necessary. It was then that my feelings on children clarified that I would only consider them if I could have a reasonable guarantee of granting them at least the numerous leg-ups I had as a child and that would be infeasible if we were that busy paying off mommy’s student loans. After we broke up, my feelings drifted toward just not interested at all: put flippantly, “spread ideas, not genes”.

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

#605

Post by vsareto »

tamaharbor wrote: post #596
vsareto wrote: post #498

Idk, playing video games all day without any responsibilities seems like they’ve straight-up won life. Most of us have to work for that privilege or be born with a trust fund in our name. Only losing side to this path is a lack of romance or intimacy. No one’s likely gonna remember you anyway, for better or worse. Might as well enjoy your time on Earth with some of the most immersive storytelling humanity has invente…

Yeah. Sounds like a real winner.

Compared to who? The number of peasants who'd have taken that over toiling in the fields all day probably number in the millions.

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

#606

Post by riversflow »

JoeyBananas wrote: post #585
stemlord wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. I spent a mere year after college living with my parents, a very long and sad year, wondering if this was going to be the rest of my life. My next real job came somewhat out of sheer luck and I'm thankful for it because I could totally see myself having given up, still back there to this day, still having no idea how…

I am talking about people who are orders of magnitude less motivated than you and do nothing to improve their situation. These people probably never went to college or dropped out just to stay home and play video games. In your case, working a low paying job as a college graduate is actually highly virtuous. Some college grads would rather do nothing because they think they are hot shit.

>working a low paying job as a college graduate is actually highly virtuous.

I disagree. In principle I don't think anyone should work a low paying job, and I think opting out if you can afford it is the right thing to do.

Why should we have a race to the bottom on labor? I'd rather we have more blogs and interesting reading on the internet than cheap Starbucks thanks to full employment and high labor-force participation.

Work for the sake of being busy is silly, I believe industriousness like you profess is unsustainable for our planet, at least in our current social order.

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

#607

Post by epicureanideal »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #580
deadite wrote: post #532

>The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. Men are socially adept in their society and a society of their peers. Just not in this one which seeks to break them down and punishes them for not being women.

There’s a lot of validity to the social struggles of men in a lot of online discourse, but to say “society“ punishes us for not being women flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success. Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically. Buying into that victim complex is a distraction from your own self-development and healing.

> flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success.

Earnings isn't necessarily the best measure of socioeconomic success.

https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-w...

Women control or influence 85% of spending, for example.

I would say the amount of goods and services you actually purchase and consume would be a better indicator of socioeconomic success, compared with earnings that may be enjoyed by someone else.

Working really hard to the point of destroying your health in order to provide a good life to your family would show up as "highly successful" by the earnings metric, but I would say the family benefits more than the one who is destroyed.

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

#608

Post by paulpauper »

JoeyBananas wrote: post #504
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…

I completely reject everything that you are saying. A grown man (or woman) who is dependent on their parents at that level has very serious problems because they are the equivalents of obese domestic dogs in a world full of wolves. Left to their own devices, they would have nothing. A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. They take it for granted that other…

I am taking more of a positive approach and describing why this is happening the rationale/motivation, not necessarily endorsing it.

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

#609

Post by throwaway6734 »

JoeyBananas wrote: post #504
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…

I completely reject everything that you are saying. A grown man (or woman) who is dependent on their parents at that level has very serious problems because they are the equivalents of obese domestic dogs in a world full of wolves. Left to their own devices, they would have nothing. A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. They take it for granted that other…

Agree, especially those who were lucky enough to be born in first world countries

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

#610

Post by throwaway6734 »

spideymans wrote: post #506
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…

More succinctly, why work when we have nothing to work for? Anecdotally, I just graduated from university and am gainfully employed. I'm really happy to be employed, yet I quickly realized that I have no idea what I want to do with all this money. I'm never going to be able to buy a house. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about having kids, and don't think I can afford children in the first place. I have no major li…

>I'm never going to be able to buy a house. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about having kids, and don't think I can afford children in the first place

>Who knows, maybe I'll end up retiring before my 40th birthday.

Does not compute

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