What happened to Growing Up?

How would you percieve the greater number of young adults who are still living at home?

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By looking at the census data and other information sources:

https://www.google.com/search?q=per...at+home&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

According to Pew, it's the highest percentage in 40 years.

Janx said:

The number of young people living at home, or worse having to move back in because of job loss is generally acknowledged as being higher (I hear articles about the economy and this point on NPR all the time).

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This is me. I'm 30 and living back with parents because I've been unemployed for a year and a half.

delericho said:

But here's the thing: if you don't have to learn responsibility (because you've got bills to pay, because you need to ensure there's food on the table, because you need clean clothes to wear), then there's very little incentive to do so - dealing with those things sucks.

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This. Look, take any kid at any age and you shove the responsibility of their survival (food, work, shelter) on them, they "mature" in the sense that they have to take responsibility. You can have 14 year olds who are raising their younger siblings because they have a single parent who works all the time. You can have a 10 year who's homeless and thus has to survive on their own. They mature because they have no choice. If you need something, and there is no one there to provide it, then you are forced to do it yourself or do without.

Kids were expected to work on the farm as soon as they were able to use tools. Up til the 1700s, 14-16 was marrying age, and as soon as you were married you were expected to provide for your family.

This doesn't mean that people aren't doing this now. A 16 year old who gets pregnant and plans to keep the kid grows up real fast because they have to take care of it. Some high school kids still get married, start families, and try to provide. 18 year olds join the military, but it's far fewer.

It's just that it's harder now. In the specified 1940s-60s era, you could go into a factory and work for 40 years. People married in highs chool or right after and immediately started having kids. Now, the longest you may work a job is 10 years. There are fewer jobs for kids that age. 70% of Fast Food workers are over 20, and the Median age of a fast food worker is 28.
WhSoruce. And if you can't afford to move out, then you're definitely not going to get married and have kids while you're still living with mom and dad.

Why would you choose to move out or start

It reminds me of this anecdote:

On a panel on philosophy and SF, one of my fellow panelists decried the predilection among younger readers for dystopias and “darkness,” then talked about how when he was a young man, he had no trouble finding a job, buying a house, living a life, etc.


“How old are you?” I asked, from the other end of the stage.


He gave his age. I believe it was around 54.


“So you’re a boomer?”


Yes.


“And how much did you pay for your first house?”


It was a figure around $60K. Less than $100K, anyway.


“The average price of a starter home in Toronto, where I live, is $550,000. I’m thirty years old. I have a university degree and two graduate degrees. Despite all that, it is likely I will never be able to afford my own home — or have my own child. You want to know why people my age and younger write without hope? That’s why.”

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And if you can't afford to move out, then you're definitely not going to get married and have kids while you're still living with mom and dad.

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Well, lets be honest here: there has never been a point in human history where the affordability of becoming a parent has been a deciding factor in whether someone becomes a parent for anything resembling a significant part of society.

Rechan said:

There are fewer jobs for kids that age. 70% of Fast Food workers are over 20, and the Median age of a fast food worker is 28.

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That's quite shocking, really.

Here's another worrying thought: there is almost nothing that happens in a fast food restaurant that requires an actual person doing the work. Virtually all of it can be automated - the only reason they don't is cost.

But every year the cost of automating goes down while the cost of staffing goes up. It's only a matter of time before those two lines cross, and then things are going to get a whole lot worse for a whole lot of people.

delericho said:

That's quite shocking, really.

Here's another worrying thought: there is almost nothing that happens in a fast food restaurant that requires an actual person doing the work. Virtually all of it can be automated - the only reason they don't is cost.

But every year the cost of automating goes down while the cost of staffing goes up. It's only a matter of time before those two lines cross, and then things are going to get a whole lot worse for a whole lot of people.

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One of the things that bugs me about the fast food worker stats is I've heard economists refer to it as a "starter job". Implying a new worker (i.e. a teenager) gets the job, learns some responsibility, then moves on to a higher paying job.

That's nice in theory, or in a well running economy with upward mobility slots for everybody.

It just doesn't seem like it's actually happening that way when "older" people are sitting in fast food jobs just to get by.

I don't think these people are retards who can't get a better job (even though I know there are better jobs out there in some places). The situation is more complicated than that.

So I guess, we gotta wonder, what do we do when the robots are able to take these (and more) jobs?

At some point, we're going to have more people who need jobs than actual jobs to perform, regardless of any belief that there are jobs out there. At some point, there could be 1,000 jobs total as robot overseers. Everybody else is unemployed.

Are we prepared for a mindshift that being unemployed is OK?

Maybe it is not about it being ok or not, but about having the priviledge of having a job. There is a MIT paper that says that predicts that 45% of remaining jobs could disappear in the next 20 years.

The real paradigme shift would be accepting legislation that limits automation.

goldomark said:

The real paradigme shift would be accepting legislation that limits automation.

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I really can't see that happening. There's just too much money to be made.

Janx said:

At some point, we're going to have more people who need jobs than actual jobs to perform, regardless of any belief that there are jobs out there.

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In a lot of cases, we're already at that point. In the UK there are about a million people seeking work, and about 80k vacancies advertised.

But it's worse even than that, because not every person is fitted for every job, and it is the unskilled and semi-skilled who see their jobs disappear first - either because the work can be outsourced to where the labour is cheaper, or because it can be automated.

I really don't know the answer. And, in truth, even if I did we're already pretty deep into politics, so it's really a discussion for another place...

delericho said:

I really can't see that happening. There's just too much money to be made.



In a lot of cases, we're already at that point. In the UK there are about a million people seeking work, and about 80k vacancies advertised.

But it's worse even than that, because not every person is fitted for every job, and it is the unskilled and semi-skilled who see their jobs disappear first - either because the work can be outsourced to where the labour is cheaper, or because it can be automated.

I really don't know the answer. And, in truth, even if I did we're already pretty deep into politics, so it's really a discussion for another place...

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The yellow flag has been raised. It's cool. No politics. I am glad we have been able to briefly discuss what has been done without getting bad.

Moving back to the specific subject, one pattern I've seen among my younger friends is a failure to launch.

It's taking them longer to graduate (if at all). I knew what I wanted to do when I was 10 years old. i spent 4.5 years in college because that's how long it took to get all the courses in my degree. I got a job straight out of college at a major tech company.

Some of that's luck, but some of it is drive. I don't see that the young people I know have the same drive to pick a path and get it done (and then struggle to get a job). Instead, they're struggling to finish school.

Janx said:

Moving back to the specific subject, one pattern I've seen among my younger friends is a failure to launch.

It's taking them longer to graduate (if at all). I knew what I wanted to do when I was 10 years old. i spent 4.5 years in college because that's how long it took to get all the courses in my degree. I got a job straight out of college at a major tech company.

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"Failure to launch" is a good term.

I was also lucky - on entry to university I had to pick three subjects, two of which were picked for me and the third I took because it sounded interesting. Pretty much on day one, I realised that that third subject was what I wanted to do, and I've been doing it (in some form) ever since.

Looking back, though, one thing that strikes me is how woeful was my 17-y-old self's grasp of the range of jobs that were out there, and the paths that I would need to take to get there. There are loads of things I could have done... but most of those doors were closed before I even knew they existed.

And as time goes on, jobs become ever-more specialised. In Scotland, we make our first pick of subjects at 13ish. Pick the wrong subjects then, and your choices at 15ish are limited. Those in turn limit your choice of degree. And with so many jobs requiring a degree (and not just any degree, but something 'relevant') the wrong pick can really set you back. In all cases it's possible to retrain or change direction... but it's a whole bunch of extra time, when you may need to be making money on which to live.

And the situation is bad enough in Scotland, where we still have state-funded university education (for 5 years, IIRC). In England, or the US, where students have to fund their own education through debt, the cost of those "wrong paths" is pretty frightening.

On that one, at least, I think there is at least a partial solution available: it's surely not beyond the wit of men to provide better careers advice to young folk.

goldomark said:

Maybe it is not about it being ok or not, but about having the priviledge of having a job. There is a MIT paper that says that predicts that 45% of remaining jobs could disappear in the next 20 years.

The real paradigme shift would be accepting legislation that limits automation.

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There was a news piece I watched with my father earlier this year about a robot that can be programmed to do hundreds if not thousands of different, non-related jobs depending on which modules you buy for it. The base cost + modules + maintenance/operations costs over the expected lifespan of the machine was low enough to compete with overseas workers. It is expected to go into full-scale production very soon.

IOW, it keeps the work in the domestic market and eliminates a bunch of import/export costs...destroying more jobs, here and abroad.

Essentially, the world may well be at the dawning of the kinds of post-labor, post-capitalism society you see in some Sci-Fi stories,where machines do most of the work.

Of course, those stories rarely talk about the transition. It could get bloody. How long does the transition take? What happens when the working class has no work to go to? How do they feed & clothe themselves?