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Education and Men without Work

nationalaffairs.com

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Re: Education and Men without Work

#31

Post by leereeves »

throwaway55554 wrote: post #13

> Among economists and policy analysts who have examined these unsettling trends, the general consensus is that declining male workforce participation in modern America is mainly a structural, demand-driven problem — a matter of evaporating local jobs, and especially jobs requiring limited skills, in an increasingly dynamic and globalized marketplace. Basically these are the men would have traditionally "built stuff"…

> We don't have any factories anymore.

Factories still exist, they're just in other countries.

And in China alone, they employ 100 million people.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#32

Post by rpiguy »

duxup wrote: post #20
tathougies wrote: post #5

The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men illustrated in the article do not seem incapable of work, but rather disinterested. Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. Most people (but esp…

> the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day Is that actually the case? The article takes issue with the narrative that supply and demand are involved ... but I don't think this article proves this idea that folks are enjoying government benefits and that results in them not working. The article certainly mentions it, but is pretty short on evide…

Disability is a federal benefit (not state) and according to the article a whopping 2/3 of these men are on at least 1 federal disability benefit. Furthermore, 1/2 of the men take prescription pain medication daily.

The government benefits certainly make it easier to not work, but the article does pain to say that correlation is not causation - it is a multi-factor phenomenon. Government benefits may enable the behavior but it isn't a cause.

What really had my brain going is why is this not the case in the Western Europe? Social benefits are just as generous and marriage rates are lower than in the United States.

According to the article in the US marriage and children were the strongest statistical differentiator between men who stop seeking work and those that do.

All I could come up with is that in the US it is the pain medication and the fact that it is easier to isolate yourself and hole up in your home.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#33

Post by cheshireoctopus »

tathougies wrote: post #5

The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men illustrated in the article do not seem incapable of work, but rather disinterested. Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. Most people (but esp…

> given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine

Interesting. This anecdotally appears to be the case. Is there anything to back this point up?

Re: Education and Men without Work

#34

Post by wccrawford »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #4
mc32 wrote: post #3

>”The fall in participation for prime-age men has largely been concentrated among those with a high school degree or less... …” What would a high school diploma or 2 year college give them that would enable them to get higher skilled jobs? I’d be inclined to think that rather than needing “GE” (general Ed) they need vocational type trading that focuses on making them skilled in a particular area (no, not coding). Tha…

“What would a high school diploma or 2 year college give them that would enable them to get higher skilled jobs?” When I look at programming jobs you pretty much need a college degree to even get a company to talk to you. I wouldn’t be too surprised if there were other jobs where having 2 years of college or a high school degree is required to be even considered. There may be exceptions but in general there is a tren…

I disagree. What you need to get your first programming job is some kind of evidence that you will be able to do the job. That might be a piece of paper from a college, but it could also be a portfolio, which is how many novice programmers get started.

I actually believed what you're saying and paid for college for a couple years. When I got my first job, it turns out they didn't even care about my degree. All that mattered was that I was better than the other applicants. 1 applicant in particular had a much better resume, but I blew him out of the water on a set of BrainBench tests that the company paid for.

At my current company, we mostly hire self-taught programmers because they're consistently the ones that show the most promise.

Of course, at Google or Apple, this might be different, and the competition is going to be much more fierce.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#35

Post by Ididntdothis »

xyzzyz wrote: post #16
mreome wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that it provides any particular skills, but rather that it acts as an indicator that someone can take direction and instruction. If an employer has 100 applicants, half of which have a high school degree or less, then they're just going to toss those applications and interview the other half simply as a matter of cost/time savings and risk reduction.

> If an employer has 100 applicants, half of which have a high school degree or less, then they're just going to toss those applications and interview the other half simply as a matter of cost/time savings and risk reduction. If this was as simple, the high school dropouts would just lie about not graduating from high school. It's not like the employer would ever find out about that.

You can go pretty far with lying about your education. There are plenty of successful people who had lied about their education as was found out later. I don’t think anyone ever verified my masters degree. But most people don’t lie.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#36

Post by tathougies »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #26
tathougies wrote: post #5

The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men illustrated in the article do not seem incapable of work, but rather disinterested. Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. Most people (but esp…

I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money. Also, if society is so plentiful that it can handle a certain percentage of people doing nothing but living for pleasure, why not let them? Work is not valuable except for its product, and if its product is not needed, the wo…

> Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure.

On the contrary. My comment indicates a serious love affair with pleasure, but not a particular fondness for fleeting pleasure. The things I mention -- family, dependents, and responsibility -- are a pathway to long-term happiness, satisfaction, and ecstasy beyond the reach of so many.

> I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money.

Well, no it's quite the opposite really. First of all, stop with the strawmanning. The men in this article are not 'gangsters'. They are otherwise law-abiding men. Secondly, you are employing a circular reasoning. You call these men losers because they are unmarried and play video games all day and don't work. You then tell me to not cast judgement on their idleness. I am not the one calling them 'losers'.

These men being married and productive would not see them engaging in any kind of 'gangster' behavior. That is not a typical way to marriage and productive family life.

> I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it.

Well that's the point. Hard work is a path to happiness, but it's not one the human mind is naturally oriented towards unless there's some point to it.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#37

Post by jdbernard »

empath75 wrote: post #18
supernova87a wrote: post #10

As unpopular it may be to say such a politically incorrect thing (admitting this is a generalization, and all the caveats that come with it) -- Men generally have the biological need to go do and wander and discover things. I don't know whether it's hormones or what. Debate all you like elsewhere (I'm not trying to debate that point here). My point is that when they don't get an outlet to do this, they cause trouble.…

> Men generally have the biological need to go do and wander and discover things. I don't know whether it's hormones or what. Debate all you like elsewhere (I'm not trying to debate that point here). What an obnoxious thing to do. You know you're stating a controversial opinion, or you wouldn't have said that. You don't get to set the rules of conversation like that.

They do, actually. They're clearly trying to frame the conversation ("I'm not trying to debate that point here") and I can understand because that debate is tired and most people have dug into their positions to the point where little more interesting conversation is likely to happen.

That doesn't mean we have to accept that framing. I don't really think OP was trying to be obnoxious, nor do I think calling them out as such help the conversation.

We have other options that lead to productive conversation. Hera are a couple:

* call out the assumption before engaging on the topic. OP already did but we could say something like "not sure I agree with your premise but assuming it was true..."

* decline to accept that framing and maybe point it out to others: "all of your points depend on the debate you don't want to avoid. I disagree with your initial statement and don't think any of the rest stands on its own."nts as given

Re: Education and Men without Work

#38

Post by aazaa »

> According to the latest monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "work rates" for American men in October 2019 stood very close to their 1939 levels, as reported in the 1940 U.S. Census. Despite some improvement since the end of the Great Recession, Great Depression-style work rates are still characteristic today for the American male, both for those of "prime working age" (defined as ages 25 to 54) and for the broader 20 to 64 group.

The premise of this article is based on this statistic. Oddly enough, no definition of "work rate" is given. After some quick searching, I didn't find anything accessible, either.

This may be significant. Is a full-time "investor" included in the count? What about a programmer working on a startup? What about some other kind of self-employed contractor?

There are many ways a person might not show up in a tally called "work rate." Many (all?) of them have become a lot easier to pull off over the last 20 years.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#39

Post by Ididntdothis »

wccrawford wrote: post #34
Ididntdothis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“What would a high school diploma or 2 year college give them that would enable them to get higher skilled jobs?” When I look at programming jobs you pretty much need a college degree to even get a company to talk to you. I wouldn’t be too surprised if there were other jobs where having 2 years of college or a high school degree is required to be even considered. There may be exceptions but in general there is a tren…

I disagree. What you need to get your first programming job is some kind of evidence that you will be able to do the job. That might be a piece of paper from a college, but it could also be a portfolio, which is how many novice programmers get started. I actually believed what you're saying and paid for college for a couple years. When I got my first job, it turns out they didn't even care about my degree. All that m…

At the companies I have worked at or contracted with a college degree was the minimum requirement to get a foot in the door. Not necessarily a computer related degree. Any degree would do. It’s kind of silly but to me it seems a fact of life. Thats why I recommend to get a college degree. You can live without but life is much easier with.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#40

Post by xyzzyz »

CptFribble wrote: post #30

I don't see why this is such a surprise, most people hate working. I thought it was almost a truism that people work for retirement, i.e. the point in their life when they have enough saved to stop working and just relax and travel or fish or whatever. If there's a way to skip 30 years of working at a job you hate and just start now, most people would take that option. This is the basic problem with basic income, alt…

we're going to have to undertake a huge cultural shift and accept a large XX% of the populace just sitting around, vaping and playing video games all day

I don't think most people care too much about that. Unlike communist states which forced people to work, even if the job was bullshit, this is a free country, and if someone wants to sit around doing nothing useful all day, they are perfectly welcome to do so.

What the people do care about though is when the government takes their money that they earned through their work and gives it to people who sit all day vaping and playing video games, so that they can keep enjoying their leisurely lifestyle. This is blatant unfairness, being punished for working and rewarded for not working.

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