What happened to Growing Up?

[Janx]

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.

This part intrigues me. Is school in Scotland that restrictive?

At least for me, here in the US, I went to a small school out in the sticks. Any computer skill I learned, I got from self-study at home. Providing I graduated, the classes I took had no bearing on what I could take/do in college. At best, high school influenced how well I scored on placement tests to be able to skip some math or english classes. I went to a small university and got my BS, and was recruited in college by a major tech firm (not a .com startup) with a plain 3.0 GPA.

So at least from my experience, there's not a huge lock-in on what you do in school, providing you're not stupid, get decent grades, stay out of trouble.

But you do need to be figuring out what you want to do by the time you graduate HS. I spent my free-time doing computer stuff, so when I hit college, I had a major I was going to stick with and excel at.

I suspect some of the problem is kids are hitting college without that sense of career plan. The people who took a degree and got work in it are pretty much doing well. The people who didn't lock in on a degree early seem to flounder. Anybody who took a fuzzy degree (something not obviously tied to a hard science/career like chemist, biologist, engineer) also tended to suffer as the job market isn't gentle on non-science/engineering degrees.

Given that companies like Exxon are hiring like gang-busters, anybody insisting on not getting a technical degree (computers, chemistry, geology, engineering) is risking wasting their money on a degree so they can make coffee at Starbucks.

That's a mantra of dad's across time to their kids who are proposing spending the money on an Russian Literature degree. But it holds true. Go where the money is.

 

[Kramodlog]

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?

And not just basic needs. People need to occupy themselves to live healthy stimulating lives.

 

[Umbran]

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

There's only money to be made if the economy doesn't crash as a result of instituting automation.

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 how many of those missing jobs have been taken by robots? Not many, I expect. The recession did not lead to a whole bunch of companies investing in automation all of a sudden to keep capacity up - there wasn't enough money around to buy the products of the extra capacity if they did. Instead, we simply had a reduction in capacity that hasn't yet bounced back, for various reasons.

In the science-fictiony end of things, there's a simple thought that, once you get good enough with technology, you can produce enough wealth (and by this, I don't mean money, I mean real wealth - food, goods, housing, energy and such) with enough efficiency that your culture can support folks who do no useful work. This can either be a doomsday scenario (if we cannot adjust), or the path to Star Trek Federation-style utopia, or... goodness knows what.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I would say there are a myriad of things that have caused this "phenomenon" of prolonged adolescence; however, I think the chiefest of these would be parenting techniques.
I am the oldest of 6 kids in my current family (I have one biological sibling and 4 step-siblings). I left home at 18, got married, joined the Army and never looked back, my younger sister (biological) got married twice, joined a cult and then drifted for years (we both graduated in the 80s).

My oldest step-brother left home and went to college, married his high school sweetheart, he got his masters in mathematics and she her doctorate in Psychology. The other 3 have been... less than successful. (they all graduated in the late 90s early 00s) You could easily point to "first-child" syndrome as we are both the "first biological" children in these scenarios. You could point out different parenting techniques over the years by all the parents involved. You could point out that the step-children's biological mother is totally F)*$%) nuts, (no really, I've met mental patients I felt more comfortable around), but I think it has a little more to do with the resolve of the persons involved.

We each make choices, those that have "easiest road" are usually the ones that hoed that row the hardest. IOW, why worry? The cream will always rise to the top, not because they are the best, but because they work hard to get there. I don't think there is any reason to worry about the number of "adolescent adults" but more the lack of "mature children".

My opinion is it's just gotten easier to ignore the hard work needed to succeed and just "get by" in this world rather than an actual "dumbing-down" of society as a whole. Do modern "children" as a whole act "less mature" than generation that came before; probably, but until society stops rewarding the lowest common denominator (politically, socially, etc/) is there really any reason to try?
THAT is probably a better question.

 

[delericho]

This part intrigues me. Is school in Scotland that restrictive?

It's pretty okay, provided they can fit you into one of three niches:

The science route: take Maths, Physics, Chemistry at S-grade (plus some others to fill out the timetable), then the same at Higher, and then into something science-y at uni.

The language route: take English, plus one or two languages (usually French plus either Spanish or German)... and so on.

The 'arty' route: take either Art & Design and/or Music and/or Drama, and English... and so on.

The problem comes if you don't sit neatly in one of the niches, or if you want to change streams - because at each step you're building on what was done before, and because at each step you're choosing a subset of what you've done before, it's easy to get 'locked in'.

Also, our provision of 'vocational' subjects is pretty awful - some of them have managed to get turned into degree subjects (often leading to lots of wasted time spent reading books when you should be learning by doing), while others are still apprenticeship-based (which means you get to waste several years at high school and then, if you're very lucky, slot into an apprenticeship).

For the people the system works for, it works very, very well. But there's a not insignificant number it fails quite badly. Meaning we have to import, for example, skilled doctors and nurses from abroad while simultaneously having a sizeable number of young people who just can't get jobs.

That's a mantra of dad's across time to their kids who are proposing spending the money on an Russian Literature degree. But it holds true. Go where the money is.

Problem is that people genuinely have different aptitudes (not to mention interests). Had David Beckham and I been swapped at birth, we wouldn't have ended up in the same places - chances are, we'd both have ended up miserable. So, encouraging someone who doesn't enjoy it and/or isn't good at, say, engineering to take such a course is not really the best solution.

Besides, all those starving artists and actors and writers and so on have hugely significantly enriched my life through their output. So it would be nice to think people could continue to make a living in those fields. (And, ideally, it would be better if the arrangement was not that one person got to be JK Rowling, with more money than she'll ever spend, while 99%+ get to never make enough money to live on.)

 

[sabrinathecat]

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.

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

Yeah. I just spent 8 months working at what was essentially Indian Fast Food with some service added in. "Starter job"? yeah right. I'm 41, and that was not my first job. But I'm not willing to move to LA, Texas, either of the Dakotas, or San Francisco. (OK, I might drive to SF, but not a great choice). Almost everyone at the Front End of the restaurant had a degree or was finishing one when I started. Now, one has a degree, the new manager has hired mostly HS grads, and a friend of mine who is 60, and hadn't had a job in a few years. He complains that at no time in his life has he been able to afford a house, a car, food, and a girlfriend, and he has worked a number of different jobs.


So school systems in Scotland are like Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies? Once you pick one, you're stuck with it?

Yes, if forced to, people will grow up faster. But it used to be a matter of pride to grow up. You wanted to support yourself and put away childish things (except when playing with your children, which was a reason to have them).

I think we need to put more into making the schools up to date so there are actual job skills, and preparation for the current work place. Heck, half the stuff I needed to know about getting a job never came up in any of the classes I took in HS or college. Part of that is the restrictions put onto teachers, and the disconnect between "real world" and academia. 5-10 years to update a State University class program means that by the time they agree on something and get approval, it is out of date.
Another problem is that in spite of all the pep talks, the economy is still in horrible shape. (Let's face it, when was the last time the economy was in Good shape? Late 90s? Sorta maybe?)

But again, delayed childhood... Some people don't seem to think it is a problem at all. Maybe I was just brought up too old fashioned. Maybe I don't fit in this "modern" world. But it seems to me that those who do grow up sooner will have a serious edge over those who don't.

 

[delericho]

There's only money to be made if the economy doesn't crash as a result of instituting automation.

True.

But how many of those missing jobs have been taken by robots? Not many, I expect.

This is true, but automation is the second wave. The first wave, the one that accounts for a lot of (unskilled and semi-skilled) jobs, is outsourcing. There are many jobs that maybe need an actual person to do them, but don't need that person to be in the UK to do them. So, when India and China are able to offer millions of people both willing and able to do the jobs for less, it's no great surprise that companies shift the labour abroad to cut their costs.

(That's not a "they took our jobs"-style rant. It's just a feature of the global marketplace. And it is gradually equalising. Sadly, I fear it's equalising just in time for the jobs to go away entirely.)

Additionally, a lot of jobs have simply gone away. Much of Scotland, Wales, and the north of England used to rely heavily on industries that have been wound up over the past few decades. And for one reason or another, they can't really come back now - the required skill-base is out of date, or the required infrastructure is gone... or, of course, the natural resources were just played out.

There is some hope on that front, at least - it does appear that the north of England may be sitting on a trove of oil that we can now extract, while Scotland may be able to benefit from green energy... maybe.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In the science-fictiony end of things, there's a simple thought that, once you get good enough with technology, you can produce enough wealth (and by this, I don't mean money, I mean real wealth - food, goods, housing, energy and such) with enough efficiency that your culture can support folks who do no useful work. This can either be a doomsday scenario (if we cannot adjust), or the path to Star Trek Federation-style utopia, or... goodness knows what.

I'm a lawyer- I already do no useful work!

Yeah. I just spent 8 months working at what was essentially Indian Fast Food with some service added in. "Starter job"? yeah right. I'm 41, and that was not my first job. But I'm not willing to move to LA, Texas, either of the Dakotas, or San Francisco.

Careful- more than in any other state, the robustness of the jobs market in Texas is built mostly on service/starter jobs. The "Texas Miracle" our Governor likes to crow about isn't so good as he makes it out to be.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

I'm a lawyer- I already do no useful work!

You'll be easily replaced with equally effective legal representation.

 

[Herobizkit]

It's threads like this that make me, age 37, college graduate (at age 35) and pretty much one of those types of people that the OP complains about...

... makes me want to kill myself.

And I'm not even joking.

The state of affairs with the world today, the job market, the hyper-focus on youth, the fact that my life's half over and I still have anything yet to show for it...

Yeah.

The only thing I can really add is that with the saturation of geek culture, it's now considered cool to extend your childhood well into you 40's AND in many cases make some profit from doing so. Everyone can now self-publish, self-promote, and self-manage via the internet... but the internet is so saturated with self-works that it's getting nigh impossible to find the good talent among the mediocre.

I live in New Brunswick, Canada, which is now officially the second poorest province in Canada (next to PEI). More and more frequently, people are either pulling up stakes to move West (because that's where the jobs are) or getting knocked up early and doing the family/welfare thing.

The retirees aren't as well off as they'd hoped, and my generation is going to be worse off.

And this generation's birth rate (I think - I have no source) appears to be the lowest in decades.

Barring a great famine, plague, or war to cull some of the population, there just aren't enough jobs for the amount of people we have.

I apologize if this sounds a touch melodramatic, but just count me among the "immature" nearly 40-somethings who can't get his life together and has to hang onto a crappy job for decent-ish pay because he can't afford to do or go anywhere else.

Thus endeth the sermon.