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Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

brookings.edu

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Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#11

Post by colmvp »

swiley wrote: post #6
jokoon wrote: post #2

I've started some treatment recently, and for some reason I immediately started dating and looking for mates again. I quickly realized how difficult it is. You can't find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. I don't want to ride the whole men…

I'm really not sure how having a job helps you find women; being trapped in a box segregated far away from them for most of the day just seems counter productive in that respect. You have the weekends but so does everyone else. I really think something has changed about how people socialize and it's simply become harder to meet like minded people; It's harder to network professionally, it's harder to find fabricators…

Well let's be honest, job status, not unlike height/ethnicity/appearance is one of the many discriminating characteristics used in dating.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#12

Post by swiley »

rudrigu wrote: post #10

"... or the wife works while the man take care of kids" Then wifey starts seeing hubby as a sexless entity --- sort of like the son she never gave birth to --- and loses attraction for him. "... it isn't a gender thing. It is a money thing" Humans spent millennia as hunter-gatherers. Men hunted, women gathered. Men protected and provided, women nurtured the children. If women provide and protection is provided by the…

I would argue it's rather dangerous to use evolution as support for theories about human behavior. This kind of argument is what brought us eugenics.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#14

Post by rudrigu »

swiley wrote: post #12
rudrigu wrote: post #10

"... or the wife works while the man take care of kids" Then wifey starts seeing hubby as a sexless entity --- sort of like the son she never gave birth to --- and loses attraction for him. "... it isn't a gender thing. It is a money thing" Humans spent millennia as hunter-gatherers. Men hunted, women gathered. Men protected and provided, women nurtured the children. If women provide and protection is provided by the…

I would argue it's rather dangerous to use evolution as support for theories about human behavior. This kind of argument is what brought us eugenics.

That is as valid as creationism. Please abstain from such worthless platitudinous statements.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#15

Post by NumberSix »

The explanation is that the government massages unemployment figures to make the economy look better than it is. The government has been doing this for decades, under Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. Unemployment is one of the most widely watched and therefor political numbers; anyone who is in power wants it to look as good as possible.

One of the tactics to make the official unemployment rates look better is to classify some unemployed workers as "not looking for work." Voila! They don't show up in the official estimates and it is their fault!

Most economists are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other powerful institutions that have little interest in questioning the official numbers. Hence lengthy academic discussions to try to "explain" the seemingly odd behavior.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#16

Post by NikolaeVarius »

swiley wrote: post #6
jokoon wrote: post #2

I've started some treatment recently, and for some reason I immediately started dating and looking for mates again. I quickly realized how difficult it is. You can't find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. I don't want to ride the whole men…

I'm really not sure how having a job helps you find women; being trapped in a box segregated far away from them for most of the day just seems counter productive in that respect. You have the weekends but so does everyone else. I really think something has changed about how people socialize and it's simply become harder to meet like minded people; It's harder to network professionally, it's harder to find fabricators…

I disagree. I don't think its harder to meet like minded people. Meetup and Facebook solved that issue,

I think the issue is that it's SO EASY to find people that there is very little incentive to actually care about a specific group more than any other. Its like criticisms of modern dating. The ocean is so large and easy to navigate that there is no incentive to get anything to actually work. Just moving on is easier.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#17

Post by ams6110 »

jimhefferon wrote: post #8
swiley wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure how having a job helps you find women; being trapped in a box segregated far away from them for most of the day just seems counter productive in that respect. You have the weekends but so does everyone else. I really think something has changed about how people socialize and it's simply become harder to meet like minded people; It's harder to network professionally, it's harder to find fabricators…

You don't think having a job helps you when the person you are interested in is deciding whether they are interested back?

Particularly women evaluating men. In general, women see the ability to protect and provide as desireable qualities in a mate.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#18

Post by csa »

I think that there is more to this story that just "low education low skill men not working". I personally think that this has more to do with the poor state of psychological health at this socio-economic status.

Specifically, the people I know who fall into this category have one or more problems:

1. One (big) problem is that they often have an enabler -- that is, someone who is supporting these folks not working in some way. The fact that they don't do more chores or childcare supports this hypothesis. As the video said, sometimes it's the wife, sometimes it's the government via disability, sometimes it's family.

2. Another problem is issues with authority -- some of these folks are difficult or impossible to manage. Of course, sometimes it's because the company/manager is dysfunctional. Other times, the "issue" is that an employer sets healthy boundaries, and someone who does not have healthy boundaries will struggle to work within such an environment.

3. A third problem is simply drug use. There are a not small number of jobs that can be done by people with low education and low skills, but the employee must be drug-free or must be a "functional" drug user. There is definitely a chicken-egg question about drug use, but once drug use begins, getting and keeping a job becomes much more difficult.

In the video, they say education is one of the keys to help the situation, and I am not convinced that this is true with the current state of education in the US. The education that needs to be done is more social/psychological in nature, imho. Until this happens, these dysfunctional people will continue to be dysfunctional. I don't want to pretend like this type of education is easy, but I think that it's closer to the solution.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#19

Post by readme »

Do you have a job? It sounds in your post like you don't.

You should really reflect on your attitude, because invoking ideas like "class struggle" when you're dating a single mom who's parents are helping her is not a healthy way to think.

If you are dating this woman and love her the only thing you should be brainstorming is how YOU could be making more money. Not some crazy armchair economist explanation for why her situation is bad.

This is one of the reasons that those two fellows did not discuss for the current problem we face: American men are declining in quality.

Get out there and do something about it.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#20

Post by kstoneman »

jimhefferon wrote: post #8
swiley wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure how having a job helps you find women; being trapped in a box segregated far away from them for most of the day just seems counter productive in that respect. You have the weekends but so does everyone else. I really think something has changed about how people socialize and it's simply become harder to meet like minded people; It's harder to network professionally, it's harder to find fabricators…

You don't think having a job helps you when the person you are interested in is deciding whether they are interested back?

I'm past dating age (and anyway I have a relationship that has survived 20 years), but when I was younger, I never considered what the woman would bring to the relationship financially. I'm very traditional, though, so perhaps this attitude is no longer as common as it was when I was younger.
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