It sounds like Japan since the 90s, but without broad societal acceptance
I really hope hikikomori doesn't become normal
Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
71–80 of 152 posts
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#72I think learned helplessness is a real problem. We have friends in their late 30's and early 40's who still live with multiple roommates. They're "well educated" but can't seem to hold a job, or stay in a relationship, or pay for anything. They've got subscriptions ticking away that they didn't remember they had, and then they're shocked to learn about an overdraft fee or a big credit card bill. One of them recently…
It is unpopular to say, but I've observed the same thing many times before.
Not that an attitude change would solve the world's problems, but some people have no sense of intentionality in their lives.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
That makes sense, but it feels to me like the more educated and higher-income young adults are the ones delaying kids / choosing not to have kids. It feels like lower-income young adults are more likely to start families.
Mmm-hmm, and the same group will jump at the opportunity to wag their finger and blame those lower-income young adults for the consequent economic hardship.
That's not hypocritical, if you're not swinging from the rafters shouting about how a declining birthrate is the end of the world.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Part of the squeeze is that we have the largest age demographic, the boomers, in a stage of life in which they are highly unlikely to move, whilst still living in their homes. These days we have the millions of people crossing the border into the US. They'll all want houses, too.
Many border-crossers can't afford to buy houses - probably most of them - but they do put pressure on the lower cost apartments and are competing with low-income citizens, which drives up the price of the lower cost apartments, which has the effect of increases demand and prices all-the-way up the food chain.
That's true. It also happens the other way. Building more luxury homes will reduce the price for non-luxury homes. This is because the wealthy will not be bidding up the prices of the non-luxury homes because there will be luxury homes available.
This effect is not recognized by people who decry the building of luxury homes.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#75Might be an unpopular opinion, especially in North America, but I think families living together is a great thing. I have a wife and child, and we all live with my parents in a largish 6-bedroom house. They are retired and I support them financially. While they bought this house before I entered the workforce, I now pay the mortgage on this house. A few years ago we did a total rebuild of the house, and it's now a gr…
> Might be an unpopular opinion, especially in North America
I once had the opportunity to ask a Vietnamese immigrant[1], "What do you think the US could learn from Vietnam?" and his answer reflected this. He frankly thought it was sad that US families "fracture" when children move out early. He admired the independence and individuality he saw in the US, but the recognized the cost of it was atomized families and expressed a deep sense that his kids would relate to him differently when they become adults.
The average American doesn't have the social technology to interpret habitation with parents in any way but through the lens of individuality and independence. I have sometime to learn here too.
What do you feel like you had to learn to make your arrangement work?
1. and Uber driver
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this a local or a national problem? Homes are a lot more affordable outside of the inflated West Coast metros.
That's true, but jobs outside of metro areas are nearly non-existent, or pay peanuts. Moving out of a metro area typically puts you in, maybe, a bigger home, but the pay is drastically lower. Food costs, internet, phone, vehicle, etc all cost nearly the same (if not more expensive), so you're probably doing even worse moving out of a metro area.
I didn’t say outside of a metro area, I said outside of the West Coast metros. The rest of the country does exist and many of us own homes and have jobs. If you live in San Francisco it’s probably easy to get the impression that everyone who isn’t a multimillionaire either pays $6000 a month to rent a studio apartment or lives in a tent and poops on the sidewalk, but that’s not what the rest of the country is like.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#77[deleted]
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#78Then you will see 1001 theories about why the population is declining. People in their 30's can't afford a house, let alone raising a family. A whole population inside a certain age group seems completely unable to grasp this basic reasoning.
Sounds good, except that fertility rate correlates inversely with income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility If you gave a population a $10k raise (in a hypothetical world with no inflation) the birth rate would probably DECREASE
Wealthy nations have easier access to contraceptives and low child mortality, and women joined the workforce. It's not so cut and dry as a mere question of income. Even your source has a section for contrary findings and fertility j-curve when using HDI rather than GDP.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#79(2020)
That's a pretty important confounding factor. I wonder if there is anything that happened in 2020 that would've made acquiring new housing more difficult. Seriously any "social science" that was done during the pandemic should probably be thrown out, because of the massive unprecedented alterations to all of society. Even if you found something out not impacted by the pandemic how would you know? Relying on informati…
We actually have built more housing where the population has been growing. 2006's wild speculation really killed the builders. But overall population growth is going down to nearly meet new construction.
https://usafacts.org/articles/population-growth-has-outpaced...
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#80Then you will see 1001 theories about why the population is declining. People in their 30's can't afford a house, let alone raising a family. A whole population inside a certain age group seems completely unable to grasp this basic reasoning.
That makes sense, but it feels to me like the more educated and higher-income young adults are the ones delaying kids / choosing not to have kids. It feels like lower-income young adults are more likely to start families.
Financial instability will do that to ya. You finally achieve a somewhat comfortable lifestyle but that requires DINK status to keep up the mortgage payments and then you look at having kids and it pushes you over the edge because daycare alone is half your mortgage.
But when you thrive in financial instability and have a lifestyle that works with a parent that's out of work or not having stable income having kids doesn't add much to that.