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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

#881

Post by xwolfi »

ksec wrote: post #704
flippinburgers wrote: post #511

Men are not doing as well as women in school. If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. In addition, there doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men. The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. This all feels like the perfect storm and there are plenty of people who act like "men…

Yes. And there were comments [1] in this thread [2] where some parents shared similar concern. There were at least two other threads on the subject in the past two years. ( Which I should have bookmarked but as usual bookmarks in general is quite useless and I cant find it ) This view isn't even mainstream yet. We are already seeing lots of parents worrying much more about their son than their daughters. It will like…

Interestingly I have a daughter and I really have 0 fear: she'll be raised like a boy as far as we make choices, at best she'll have a meaningful empowering career at worst she'll have a husband and kids and we'll help her if she needs.

I'd be weirdly worried about a boy feeling like crap without a big career or needing our help. I know a daughter would be much less humiliated at the prospect.

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

#882

Post by the_lonely_road »

vsareto wrote: post #605
tamaharbor wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Millions? The number of men who died shitting themselves with a government issued piece of iron gripped in their hands and zero choice about being there is probably in the billions not millions. (98 billion dead humans, presumably 49 billion of them men). The lions share of the rest of those billions toiling in fields would no doubt have joined those others in living a life of air conditioned immersive competition/story telling and considered themselves having won at life.

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

#883

Post by JoeAltmaier »

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #303
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One young man in my boy's cohort got addicted. Sat and drank beer and played video games until exhausted; then slept on the couch and repeat the next day. Two years later, died of liver failure.

Are you sure he didn't have an alcohol addiction? I'm not convinced inactivity and video games lead to liver failure.

Drank nothing but beer. No solid food. Skeletal by the end. So call it what you will.

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

#884

Post by Noos »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #519
_fhnu wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or they'll be fine, marry loving partners, get into doing something lax like flipping cars or real estate, spend more than they probably should on entertainment, have a kid or two, pay off their $100k home by retirement age, and live like most of the bottom 40% of the US. Not everywhere has money. I'm from a place where mortgages (with PMI) plus property tax are under $600/mo, families mostly own one vehicle (a van o…

it doesn't work this way. My experiences/watching is that the men at 40 live with their parents or relatives, take care of them some, and stay single for the rest of their lives in a pretty low standard of living. Essentially those men are the new spinsters, and definitely do not have decent jobs or kids.

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

#885

Post by JoeAltmaier »

the_lonely_road wrote: post #882
vsareto wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Millions? The number of men who died shitting themselves with a government issued piece of iron gripped in their hands and zero choice about being there is probably in the billions not millions. (98 billion dead humans, presumably 49 billion of them men). The lions share of the rest of those billions toiling in fields would no doubt have joined those others in living a life of air conditioned immersive competition/st…

Here's the data:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll

Maybe 1B total over all of history. The number of humans who have ever lived is estimated at 100B. So, what, 1% have died in war? Back of the envelope.

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

#886

Post by twh270 »

madaxe_again wrote: post #792
twh270 wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I've had many conversations about this topic with my son (and on occasion some of his friends -- both male and female), since he was in middle school (a decade ago). They're well aware of how men are portrayed versus women. We've transitioned from "A women's place is in the home (barefoot, pregnant, and cooking a delicious meal for her husband)" to "A woman's place is whatever she wants, and men are the reason f…

You say that, but bias is absolutely rife still. In commercial and entertainment media, it’s the woman in the kitchen, buying the groceries, raising the children, and holding down a 80 hour week job at her law firm. The man is playing ball in the yard, or is doing business in a suit. He definitely expects dinner to be on the table when he gets home from his 1950’s day job. Then there’s other people. Women get asked “…

Today, today it's culturally acceptable to ridicule, scorn, and otherwise attack men and manhood; to portray men as arrogant, abusive, and controlling. The word 'masculine' is now a derogatory term that means the same thing as 'toxic'. "Men are trash".

The message is that to be a man is to be lesser, or irrelevant, or harmful to society. That there's something shameful about being a man.

"There's nothing wrong with taking men down a peg or two; after all, they rule pretty much everything". Yeah, now what about the overwhelmingly vast percentage of men who will never have a management position or hold office? Whose life is just mediocre? Is it also okay to tell him he's toxic trash?

And sure, the proper response is "don't listen to the garbage". Doesn't mean it's okay to spew garbage.

As for entertainment media, it's a shit-show on both sides -- women and men are both horribly stereotyped.

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

#887

Post by dragonwriter »

twh270 wrote: post #886
madaxe_again wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that, but bias is absolutely rife still. In commercial and entertainment media, it’s the woman in the kitchen, buying the groceries, raising the children, and holding down a 80 hour week job at her law firm. The man is playing ball in the yard, or is doing business in a suit. He definitely expects dinner to be on the table when he gets home from his 1950’s day job. Then there’s other people. Women get asked “…

Today, today it's culturally acceptable to ridicule, scorn, and otherwise attack men and manhood; to portray men as arrogant, abusive, and controlling. The word 'masculine' is now a derogatory term that means the same thing as 'toxic'. "Men are trash". The message is that to be a man is to be lesser, or irrelevant, or harmful to society. That there's something shameful about being a man. "There's nothing wrong with t…

> The word 'masculine' is now a derogatory term that means the same thing as 'toxic'.

This whole comment was BS, but I’ll focus on one example. This is the exact opposite of the truth, “toxic masculinity” is a common phrase because “toxic” is an adjective that is seen as *adding significant information to the description which is not already present in ‘masculinity’”.

If masculinity were viewed as inherently toxic, “toxic masculinity” wouldn’t be a needed phrase.

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

#888

Post by lkrubner »

nobodyknowsyoda wrote: post #878
lkrubner wrote: post #715

What should strong, stupid men do? Male participation in the economy peaked in the 1950s. It began to decline as the USA automated agriculture. Millions of years of evolution gave us some men who are very strong, but very stupid. There used to be an abundance of jobs for such men. Agriculture, in particular, provided endless jobs for such people. Some of these jobs paid surprisingly well. When I was very young, I spe…

> But again, what should we do with very strong, very stupid men? There used to be an abundance of jobs for them, some of which paid well. Nowadays there are no jobs for them. Last summer I took a job in construction. Construction fits the bill of what you’re describing. There needs to be more construction in America

I agree, but it won't be possible to expand construction enough to cover all of the jobs that agriculture lost. Back in 1950 that was almost 5% of the work population. Construction might absorb 2% or 3% under ideal conditions. But some creativity will be needed to reabsorb all of what was lost.

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

#889

Post by MyHypatia »

flippinburgers wrote: post #511

Men are not doing as well as women in school. If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. In addition, there doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men. The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. This all feels like the perfect storm and there are plenty of people who act like "men…

I do agree that there are a lot of internet and media headlines that portray men in a negative light. Yes, writers generate Internet/media content with provocative headlines declaring "The End of Men". But in real life I see plenty of men getting good jobs, having families, winning awards, changing the world. Everywhere I look there are positive examples of men killing it: in business, sports, politics. So I feel like you would have to ignore all of the male political leaders, sports super stars, highly regarded thinkers and scientists, business leaders, entrepreneurs, religious clergy, and just focus only on stupid things people on the internet said to feel like the world is bleak for men. Yes, women are getting higher grades in school and graduating in higher numbers than men. I don't think that one metric by itself spells a doom and gloom future for men. Men don't have to be better than women in every metric to have a bright future.

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

#890

Post by manigandham »

withinboredom wrote: post #811
manigandham wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can retire before 40 but cant afford a house? That doesn't add up. Also do you realize that billions of people on this planet have a far worse life than you? You have the luxury of having problems like these. However purpose and meaning don't just appear out of nowhere, you have to actively go find them.

Heh, I have enough income to retire in my 30s, but not enough to buy a house in the neighborhood I rent in where home prices have gone up 500% in the last 10 years.

You need wealth to retire, not income. Can you stop working and still have that income? And if you can stop working, then why can't you buy elsewhere?
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