Young Men Are Working Less. Some Economists Think It's Because They're Home Playing Video Games. (nytimes.com) 283
Video games are instrumental in understanding why younger men are working fewer hours, according to a paper published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. From an article: By 2015, American men 31 to 55 were working about 163 fewer hours a year than that same age group did in 2000. Men 21 to 30 were working 203 fewer hours a year. One puzzle is why the working hours for young men fell so much more than those of their older counterparts. The gap between the two groups grew by about 40 hours a year, or a full workweek on average. Other experts have pointed to a host of reasons -- globalization, technological change, the shift to service work -- that employers may not be hiring young men. Instead of looking at why employers don't want young men, this group of economists considered a different question: Why don't young men want to work? Economists Erik Hurst and his colleagues estimate that, since 2004, video games have been responsible for reducing the amount of work that young men do by 15 to 30 hours over the course of a year (syndicated source). Using the recession as a natural experiment, the authors studied how people who suddenly found themselves with extra time spent their leisure hours, then estimated how increases in video game time affected work. Between 2004 and 2015, young men's leisure time grew by 2.3 hours a week. A majority of that increase -- 60 percent -- was spent playing video games, according to government time use surveys. In contrast, young women's leisure time grew by 1.4 hours a week. A negligible amount of that extra time was spent on video games. Likewise for older men and older women: Neither group reported having spent any meaningful extra free time playing video games.
Riiiiiight (Score:5, Insightful)
But no, we're all at home playing video games. I wish I had gotten that memo!
Re:Riiiiiight (Score:5, Insightful)
Women work part time jobs: blame the system! Men work part time jobs: lazy men!
Double standard bite both ways.
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This is the most sexist thing I've ever seen on /. (The article, not the parent.) I mean try to imagine "there's no wage gap, these economists say women just spend more time on their hair." (According to the article, women spend the same amount of extra time on "Optional sleeping, eating and personal care." Check me out, I'm an economist.)
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Weird that you see this as "blaming" men. Why the automatic assumption that men are being victimized?
It's just an observation. A rather poor one, but it doesn't seem to be saying "men waste time on video games when they should be working" or anything like that. In fact the main thing they found is that when men have more free time due to recession, they often spend it playing video games, and then hypothesise that even when work is available young guys prefer a better work/life balance over long hours at th
Re:Riiiiiight (Score:5, Interesting)
The NEET phenomenon (like they call it in Japan) is due to several reasons. One is that with smaller one-child families it becomes less important to get your own house since there is room to spare. Also houses have become a lot more expensive. Where like 3-4 decades ago in the West someone could buy a house with 3 years work now it takes like 8 years work for the average citizen to get a house. In addition studies take a lot longer so you graduate college at 21 years. Two generations ago someone who was 16 years old typically was in an apprenticeship while at 18 they were employed. If this person then takes a Masters degree they graduate even later and meanwhile they aren't working. Another factor is that it is much harder to find a steady job, or even an entry level job, which pays enough for someone to constitute his own family, especially for those without qualifications, even those with the studies for it are typically required to have prior experience, and even those who are employed typically do not enjoy full employment. Without job security it is hard to be able to pay a loan and get a house. If you only need enough money for clothes and food you only need to work a couple hours per week.
Also typically modern companies to do not pay for overtime and quite a lot of people don't want to get in the rat race because of this.
Computer games has little to nothing to do with it. It's not like you couldn't play football or fish on your spare time like they did a couple generations ago. Back then it was also common for people to drive around to spend their time. This became less common as fuel prices went up. Because of higher fuel prices youngsters and the unemployed started holing up indoors, stopped buying cars, and online gaming became more common.
There was a lot more pressure to leave your parents house with large families with several people in each bedroom and this was a lot easier to do back when houses were cheaper. I have as much room for myself on my parents house today as my parents did when were married. I got a whole floor for myself. So why should I get my own house and lose the advantages of shared living? Even those who don't want to live with their parents today sometimes live in youngster communities once they leave college because of this.
I got my own car, which I bought brand new and paid for it with cash, I own a plot of land that's over twice the area of my parents house, I can use as much floor space in their house as they did when they got married, and I have like 3 years savings in the bank. Why should I slave away in a thankless job? Fuck em. If the job is interesting I do it, if it's not I don't.
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The NEET phenomenon
NEET means "Not in Education, Employment, or Training" so I don't know why you are talking about master degrees and apprenticeships and such. NEETs don't do any of that.
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As a professional videogame developer, I approve of this trend. Except that we need to get women playing more videogames as well. For equality, of course.
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If you include mobile/casual, women already make up about 50%.
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There's nothing stopping women from playing video games, and they do it.
But they generally avoid AAA titles because they're generally in for a quick and addictive fun, not a massive boring cutscene fest with shallow gameplay.
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I wish I was working a bit less and had more time to play videogames.
That's stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't young men want to work?
They've made a BIG assumption there. They skipped the important bit about why they aren't hiring and jumped straight to "let's blame them with what they are spending their time on," which is a really shitty thing to do.
Re:That's stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
That was the goal in its entirety.
Admitting that there are reasons other than "they're lazy ingrates" would be to admit that there is a problem which cannot be blamed on the victims; one that needs significant alterations to the current economic model in order to solve.
Those same people shipping their entire programming force or engineering work to a middle-eastern call-center want to keep pocketing as long as they can, collapsing middle-class (ideally) be damned.
Re: That's stupid. (Score:2)
I am completely uneducated, and recently moved to a new city in the Midwest because I wanted to.
The very first job I applied for found pays $38k (which is adequate here), and has excellent benefits that far outweigh anything that might seem lacking in payscale. They hired me immediately.
Am I doing something wrong, or doing something right?
So far in my adult life, nobody has questioned my education or lack thereof.
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Re:That's stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
They've made a BIG assumption there. They skipped the important bit about why they aren't hiring and jumped straight to "let's blame them with what they are spending their time on," which is a really shitty thing to do.
It's not only a shitting thing to do; it's a brain dead stupid thing to do. I'm starting to think most of our society's problems are caused by idiots who don't understand the difference between causation and correlation. Or even the tendency to mistake the result for the cause.
I for instance make triple the income I did in my 20's, and I spend about four times as much on housing. By this idiot's methodology, I should probably buy a house four times as expensive as my current one because my income will triple again. Why didn't I think of this earlier?
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There are decent arguments for overdressing in interviews because suits are prejudiced towards other suits and it can get you more money. Get a really nice suit if you want to play this game, half assing it won't work.
Re:That's stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I disagree with that, but why the hell would I want to work? The only reason I have ever wanted to work in my life has been to get money for the things that I want. Doing more work than is required of me is counter productive because it eats up my time for doing things that actually interest me. If I could, I would gladly work fewer hours for proportionately less pay, but my employer isn't interested in that kind of schedule and it doesn't seem like there are many professional jobs with that kind of option.
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At my last job (where I was still a bachelor and not like now, where I'm in the early family planning stages) I was locked in to a very low rental rate, had no external expenses (car, insurance, health costs etc) and was continuing to live the same (very, very cheap) lifestyle I had when I was unemployed during the 2008 crisis (a couple hundred dollars a month after rent)... if I could have gone down to 30 or even 20 hours a week I may have taken it. I had enough surplus money to travel extensively, but not
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What's daft is the gaming talk when it's an average *two hours* a week out of 60 hours of leisure time. Watching TV rates at 17 hours on the same chart. The charts don't show hours worked so it's like either assumptions on gaming taking away from working hours or they didn't bother to present the information they're working from.
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also the assumption that you should want to work. If your work is boring and gaming isn't why wouldn't you minimize the prior and maximize the later? That is the problem with econ IMO: they assume that the only thing that matters is money. Maybe gamers can get by on less money because they only need a few hundred a month to buy games vs a $40 smokes and booze habit of yesteryear. If you are happy who cares? Stop working when you have enough.
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They also missed the part where these men are happier than their peers that work more.
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It might seem poorly-supported and inflammatory. But maybe that's because they wanted inflammatory. Because of course they did. Anyone seen Nightcrawler? No, I'm not bringing it up to make a point about the borked job economy - I'm reminding us that media loves misery. It's next-gen clickbait. They exhausted the words "trick", "believe", and "top".
So they troll.
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I think capitalism relies on a large amount of moralizing to coerce workers into unfavorable job markets. Young men wasting time on gaming is just the latest iteration. In years past it was alcohol consumption, opium, and marijuana that were diverting labor into indolence rather than providing capital with a labor force.
If the segment of workers who find themselves satisfied with less or little labor force participation stay out of the labor market, business owners will wind up with a smaller labor pool b
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Most likely either because it's pointless due to lack of additional return, or because the amount of money they get per turn of the crank is sufficient. Who said that working should take up 100% of their time? (probably the sackless white knights who think men exist solely to provide for women)
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The important question appears to be "why aren't men motivated to work harder"?
Why work past the point of diminishing returns?
Work-Life Balance (Score:5, Insightful)
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The very definition of having "made it" has changed too. These days if a young person can get a house they are doing pretty well, and that property is also their pension. It's often their inheritance too - in the UK the only way many people can afford property, if they can at all, is with a loan from their parents or just waiting for some relative to die and leave them some money/property.
Re:Work-Life Balance (Score:5, Interesting)
While the article specifically suggests video games, I'd suggest it's a broader dimension of work-life balance. I think there's been a culture shift that killing yourself for your job isn't worth it
I don't think so. I look at my own kids and their friends, and I see a definite impact of video gaming on their productivity.
Note that in what follows, I'm going to start with an illustrative anecdote, then generalize to some more anecdotes. I'm not claiming this is "data", just that it demonstrates a pattern that may explain how video games could actually reduce work hours and related issues, not because of a focus on work/life balance, but because gaming sucks up available time and energy. Perhaps the best word is "focus". Gaming reduces focus on real life issues.
As my prime example, there's a young man who lives in my house. He's a friend of my sons whose own family life was severely problematic. Not abusive, more inattentive and economically dysfunctional. He ended up abandoning school at age 14 to work full time to support his family because his dad was unable to get a job. At age 18, two years ago, he came to visit us for a month, and stayed. We agreed to let him stay because we had room, felt sorry for the mess he was coming from and wanted to help him. We figured that living with us would give him the time to get his GED, then start getting onto a college career track (he's a bright kid; something of an obnoxious geeky know-it-all, but he has the intelligence to back it up, if only he had the education to use that intelligence).
Two years in, he has a part-time job flipping burgers, no GED and no college plans.
Three months in, he didn't even have the job, though he did have a fancy gaming rig that he brought with him. We had been talking to him regularly about his life trajectory and plans, with no effect. To try to get him to make progress, we helped him find information on getting a GED... and we started charging him rent. Only token rent, actually, $300 per month which includes all of his food (he eats at least $300 per month), utilities, etc., and we weren't too picky about him falling behind. That did motivate him to get a job (at the burger place where he still works)... but he didn't actually pay rent very regularly, instead spending most of his money on gaming.
About a year in, we cracked down on the rent requirement. We gave him a deadline to get caught up on his rent, and said that if he didn't, we'd load his stuff in the truck and take him to his mom's house (500 miles away). Because our three-month deadline was generous, he did nothing until a month before the deadline, then decided it was impossible since what he owed was about 150% of his month's income and he hadn't saved a dime. So, he told his boss that he was giving 30 days' notice, and explained the reason. His boss told him that he didn't want to lose him and would make sure that he had enough hours that month to pay his back rent and get caught up. He did, and has stayed current on his rent.
But... no movement at all on education. The gaming rig, however, has grown to epic proportions.
We sat him down for a formal discussion of his future a few days ago, and the conversation was enlightening. We told him that we were going to set a series of deadlines for taking a GED prep course, taking the GED, taking an ACT prep course, and taking that test. He said okay, and we asked him why he hadn't already made progress on the GED. He said that he just hadn't had time... and after some more discussion it became clear that this wasn't an excuse and it wasn't temporizing, it was really what he thought, that his 28-hour work week left him no time to look up when and where to take the GED.
How could that be? Well, his habit, every day, is to wake up thinking about the games he's going to play, with new ideas about how to approach this boss fight, or optimize that character, or some clever combination of tricks for the other scenario.
And here's where
Uh-huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it be that "young" men just saw the prior generation(s) go through massive lay off's, lost their houses, their life savings and decided, "screw this, if the reward can be taken away like that, why the F should I work so hard?"
Really IMHO American corporations have themselves to blame for this. They have done a very good job of removing any kind of job security, chased profits for the sake of chasing profits, off-shored, out-sourced, missed en masse why claiming it was "necessary". Yeah I get it.
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*dismissed en masse
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Really IMHO American corporations have themselves to blame for this. They have done a very good job of removing any kind of job security, chased profits for the sake of chasing profits, off-shored, out-sourced, missed en masse why claiming it was "necessary". Yeah I get it.
This exactly. Corporations have been so busy chasing profits that they've forgotten about who makes those profitable products. When you stop caring about your workforce, they stop caring about you.
Just in my ~15 years of career I've started with 15 days/year of holiday (10 federal + 5 discretionary) with 401k (with up to 8% matching) AND pension plans. Now its 10 days/year of holidays and 401k with 4% matching, if you're lucky. No pensions, less matching of 401k, less vacation (overall), an arguably a higher expectation of hours put in.
Pay hasn't increased substantially, my starting salary post-B.S. was ~$50k, and it's now somewhere around $53k some 12 years later. When I first started, I knew who the CEO was and they knew who I was (or at least who my boss was). Even more, I had shaken their hand and had a chance to talk to them in person. Now? They're just some guy in that has an aide or intern send an email out every few months telling us how awesome he is.
Re:Uh-huh. (Score:4, Interesting)
What did you expect them to do?
Back when global trade began to pick up speed corporations (not just American ones, everywhere) were completely happy using and selling slave labor. It should be pretty clear to people everywhere at this point that corporations as entities are not moral or immoral, they're amoral, driven by profit alone. They've never had any other purpose or goal. They don't even care about breaking laws if the costs incurred by the penalties or settlements are smaller than the profit to be made by doing so. I mean that's what happened in the '08 crisis. The major players settled, a lot of the costs were shifted to the tax-payers in the form of bailouts and many of the banks still made a profit. Why would you expect them to suddenly start acting differently?
And most importantly they've spent enough money lobbying politicians so that any talk of regulating companies is usually met with instant hatred by the defenders of 'the free market' who firmly believe that only by maximizing 'freedom' on the market through deregulation and giving the corporations even more power to act as they please and less responsibilities will everything be fixed.
But there's another side to this as well: it's not just the corporations, it's also the consumers. People want cheaper commodities and cutting out expensive western manufacturing labor is one way of meeting that demand. The majority of the products of off shoring production are sold back to western consumers.
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People want cheaper commodities and cutting out expensive western manufacturing labor is one way of meeting that demand. The majority of the products of off shoring production are sold back to western consumers.
I WANT reliable, well-made, lasting commodities. I can only AFFORD cheap, poorly-made, easily-wearing commodities. So I either do without (and try to save up to afford the reliable stuff far down the line, assuming it's a want and not a need-to-survive commodity) or I buy the cheap stuff.
I've spent the last three years job-hunting for something better, both while employed and not, and the best I've been able to source was a job that had benefits that I would pay 50% for as an optional opt-in, with no incr
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Boomers have all the money and property, so many younger people's plan is now to basically wait until some boomer relative dies and they win the inheritance lottery.
We are moving back to the days of landed gentry, where the main way most people get to have personal wealth or property is by inheriting it.
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Could it be that "young" men just saw the prior generation(s) go through massive lay off's, lost their houses, their life savings and decided, "screw this, if the reward can be taken away like that, why the F should I work so hard?"
Really IMHO American corporations have themselves to blame for this. They have done a very good job of removing any kind of job security, chased profits for the sake of chasing profits, off-shored, out-sourced, missed en masse why claiming it was "necessary". Yeah I get it.
I know thats where I am.
My Father worked 50-80 hour weeks when I was young I watched him get screwed over by his boss and work himself into a nervous breakdown on one job and is on his way to another at his current job at which he works 50 to 60 hour weeks. It took him decades to pay off student loans and has little retirement to speak of.
My Grandfather was a company man worked for them same company after getting out of college paid for by the GI bill, he was laid off just a few years before he could retire
Or maybe they got smart (Score:5, Insightful)
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Some of them do. Ever looked at Kickstarter or Patreon?
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..or maybe it's just to unwind after a day of passive aggressive office politics getting in the way of your productivity.
How come watching TV doesn't get all the hate video games do? Far more people flip on the TV after work.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Holy doom and gloom Batman! That is fucking bleak! I'm not sure what part of the world and what kind of job you're describing, but you might want to reconsider.
Current life situation is too hard to make drastic changes? Just look at what people have dealt with throughout history. Today there are opportunities abound, if you care to search and reach for them. Nobody said life was easy.
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You expect me to hold your hand while you jerk off too?
Grow up buttercup.
Or it could be because of high unemployment (Score:3)
Source:
https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit... [bls.gov]
Re:Or it could be because of high unemployment (Score:4, Informative)
Or not. At least in the USA, the phrases "left the work force" and "unemployment rate" are completely disconnected. If you're unemployed for a signficant period, you have "left the workfirce", and are no longer counted as unemployed.
Which is one of the many things that make our definition of "unemployment rate" pretty much meaningless.
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No, you have left the workforce when you have stopped looking for work. The ability to collect this data is based on your participation. If you're not working but actively trying you're likely collecting unemployment and reporting that. But if you're not employed after six months or a year it's becoming less likely you're going to report to the local workforce center or unemployment office. If you're not pulling a salary, why would they consider you to be employed or looking for work after that point?
Th
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Or not. At least in the USA, the phrases "left the work force" and "unemployment rate" are completely disconnected. If you're unemployed for a signficant period, you have "left the workfirce", and are no longer counted as unemployed.
hum... no...
The unemployement rate is the U-3 measure which only means: "people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks". (source wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and reference therein )
Note that the USA quote the u-3 metric as the unemployement rate to allow direct comparison with other countries but other metrics are also reported.
There are reasons not to like u-3, but "you are not counted if you have not worked XYZ weeks" is not one of them.
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The unemployment rates for 20-25 year olds is twice that of the other age groups. Males being the worst off group.
Or maybe gaming is part of the reason for the unemployment.
I don't know about where you live, but where I live employers are desperate for people. My son-in-law, who has no education, not even a high school diploma or GED, just got a $16 per hour job, full-time, with benefits, and that after getting fired from his last three jobs for not bothering to show up. "Help Wanted" signs are everywhere, and all are offering well above minimum wage for unskilled labor. My son has an offer, at a similar pay scale, a
retarded (Score:2)
Video Games (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, let blame video games rather than a decade of economic stagnation that has left a generation that feel they can't even aspire to the things their parents took for granted would be attainable.
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I would give you one of my mod points if I hadn't already commented
No reason to work (Score:4, Interesting)
We see a lot of these articles lately.
The most discouraging part is that the majority of the pieces aren't worrying about the lack of upward mobility, stagnant and negative wage growth, increase in male suicide and mental issues, lack of roles in current society for 50% or so of guys, etc.
No. The true calamity is, instead, the dearth of marriageable men for the many educated and 30+ women who now cannot find a good man to marry. Of course, what this really means is that women, now making just as much as men (if not more when single) refuse to marry men with lower incomes and / or educations than themselves.
As for myself in my late 30's, I don't have a problem with finding a good and somewhat stable job and income. My problem is that, after seeing numerous older relatives and now friends torn apart by the family court system during a divorce, I have little interest in marrying a 35-40 year old women who just realized, 15 or so years of having fun and finding herself, that she does, in fact, want the kids and family package she was promised. Unfortunately, most of these women are only looking for a guy with enough cash to pay for it all - something increasingly overpriced (houses, weddings, diamonds, kids) in most areas of the US these days.
So it turns out, I don't really need to spend very much money as a single guy. Without the kids and mortgage and all the rest, it turns out most guys don't really need much money (women spend approximately 80% of discretionary income - that's why advertisements are targeted to them and not single guys). So no need to continue slaving away at the office for the promise of mgmt. or any piece of the profits - the Boomers are still sucking off all the meat, and will be 'till they're last breath. And for me, that means when I'm in my 50s or so, and won't care anyway.
It's Really About Control (Score:5, Insightful)
The people like these researchers see young men not as people, but merely as tools that exist to serve their ends.
Thus the researchers see any time young men spend on things that interest them rather than "being productive" as time being "stolen" from the society that owns them.
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The people like these researchers see young men not as people, but merely as tools that exist to serve their ends.
Thus the researchers see any time young men spend on things that interest them rather than "being productive" as time being "stolen" from the society that owns them.
These aren't researchers, they're economists. Calling them researchers is an insult to everyone who has ever managed to pass a high school science class.
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To be fair, it's probably not the researchers themselves (though they are very likely to suffer from ideological lensing), it's the ones who pay them.
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The people like these researchers see young men not as people, but merely as tools that exist to serve their ends.
Society see's men this way - all through history in all civilisations ever recorded men are motivated to provide for the good of society using females as a reward. In recent times this has changed, hence male behaviour has changed.
Thus the researchers see any time young men spend on things that interest them rather than "being productive" as time being "stolen" from the society that owns them.
Because it is, in fact, theft from society. Males have always been a net contributor to society. It's only recently that this has changed. Expect the change to accelerate as it is un-PC to give consideration to men the way it is given to women.
I believe women (and the productive
No reason to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the comments are going to be about the lack of jobs, roles, and status most young men in America are now seeing. And this is probably the majority of the reason for men checking out.
But as a single guy is his prime (mid 30s) who is able to find well paying jobs and earn a good living, I'll tell you why I'm finding less and less reason to give a shit about my career, money, and status anymore. 2 Reasons:
1. It's apparent that no matter how hard I work and how well I perform, I'm never going to get a decent mgmt position (i.e. share in the profits) of any company because there are way too many older Boomers who are not letting go. Some of them still need the money, others don't, but just aren't ready to retire. Regardless of the reason, I'm stuck in the middle. And if and when my time comes for a senior role, I'll be in my 50's and will care even less than I do now.
2. Marriage and kids are too risky. Besides the absurd cost of houses and children, lack of job stability, and all the rest, I've seen too many male friends and family be destroyed by divorce: Losing their kids, their savings, and freedom for a decade or two (child support and alimony). Half my friends who are still married don't look like they're enjoying it either (though they all love their kids).
Without a mortgage, kids, wedding costs, wife who has a spending addiction, etc - turns out a guy like me doesn't need much money to be content. And since I no longer expect anything for my work, I've decided to not give much, either. Fuck it.
It's the effect, not the cause (Score:2)
Just a thought (Score:4, Interesting)
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I wonder if lower marriage rates has anything to do with this. Not being married, having a kid, etc. means less pressure to work and earn as much money as you can
I would like to posit a different theory: Not being married with children makes it more likely that you actually *want* to go home.
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Increase their spare time? How does this work? I don't know of any industry where the full time hour/week rate drops much below 38hrs. Most are way more than that. With insane costs for housing and transportation, only a very few lucky and hardworking people can give up work hours and make ends meet.
They're wrong (Score:5, Funny)
They're wrong. It's because of easy access to p0rn websites.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have "work" to do.
Maybe they're smarter than we think? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting that just a few hours ago, we had an article asking whether or not it was worth it to put in long hours at a job. I'm sure the video game thing was meant to increase the article's clickbait factor, but there might be something to this.
Back a long time ago from when I started working (so, maybe peaking around the 60s) getting a job with a large US company was about the closest you could come to lifetime employment without earning tenure. I know lots of people from that era who worked from high school to retirement for large manufacturers, AT&T, IBM, etc. There was a degree of loyalty on both sides, employer and employee, that's missing in the modern workforce. Companies hung onto people as long as they could, and barring some major disaster, you could pretty much count on having a job. There was a clear career path internally, such that you always had an income that kept up with your experience. In return, people were expected to give a little more of themselves. I distinctly recall many families being relocated (at company expense) frequently to work on new projects or land promotions. That must have been hard, but it was the price one paid for the employer's loyalty to the employee.
Am I advocating lifetime employment, no layoff rules/policies and more loyalty on both sides of the fence? Yes, I suppose I am. You don't see companies giving a second thought to sending entire technical departments to India to save 25% in absolute labor costs. And for all but the rockstars, you never see companies paying people to move and take on new jobs. I'm well aware that some people are making out quite well in this new system. But, not enough people are benefiting from what should be a broad period of economic recovery. Companies _can_ afford to offer people stability and security; they just choose not to.
If I were a recent grad facing 40+ years of the current situation work/life wise, and saw many examples of people being kicked to the curb years short of retirement, then I might not want to bust my ass so hard.
Figures don't lie but liars can figure (Score:2)
Why are young men working less? Could it be the languishing great recession recovery for the lower class? Reduced hours due to employer health care costs, outsourcing, or automation? Those troubling answers could contradict the narrative of current economic policies so of course video games must be the culprit!
Economists are experts on supply and demand and thus supply findings that benefit the employers of economists. Any economists not contributing to the direct benefit of the institution that employs th
I'm missing the causality thing (Score:2)
Fucking rubbish article. I've read more interesting phone directories. Hate to use *that* phrase, but I'm not seeing anything close to actual causality here.
Is this their logic?
1) younger men are working fewer hours
2) the drop in young men's hours is more than in old gimmers
3) young men play more videogames than old gimmers
4) Therefore, videogames are causing the drop in hours
I can't see why it isn't equally likely that when you've fuck all to do and no money to spend[1] because you've been made redundant
Zombie. (Score:2)
god damn patriarchy. (Score:3)
freaking men and their "trying to enjoy their lives"
Selfish assholes.
Rebuttal (Score:3, Interesting)
The Misandry Bubble [singularity2050.com]
Long article, but well worth the read. On this topic, from the section "The Four Horsemen of Male Emancipation", the fourth is "Male Economic Disengagement and Resultant Tax-Base Erosion".
If software engineering is anything to go by.... (Score:3)
I put it down to most companies increasingly blatant exploitation of their employees leading to said employees being less inclined to work long extra hours on demand for nothing in return, not even any credible guarantees of continued employment..
Make the numbers say what you want. (Score:3)
Men have more free time, video games are a relatively new form of entertainment so of course you can say this extra free time is spent playing video games.
But you could say that same thing of any new thing, like watching YouTube videos. Even household chores probably count since it is becoming less common for women to do everything.
Just pick the thing you want to push your agenda.
Poor testing methods (Score:3)
So they made an assumption and seemingly tested exclusively against the assumption, attempting to prove it right. Not science.
Allow me to posit an alternative hypothesis ( which is all they really have ); young men are avoiding marriage until later in life and in some case swearing it off entirely. It's well known that marriage, and the inevitable spawn that comes with it, are a major pressure on men to produce; perhaps the toxic mating culture in today's western society is poisoning the well against that well known mechanism. Young men have seen what divorce puts men through and have wisely decided to "Nope" the fuck out of that equation.
That's my hypothesis anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope (Score:2)
We are working less because we keep having to point out in such stories that correlation does not equal causation.
That's why,
I notice a lot of folks shouting this article down (Score:2)
Maybe it's a defensive posture to an attack on our favorite hobby. But I'm used to a few of the libertarian types to offer up something besides "of course they don't want to work, not enough reward". Of course, that's perfectly compatible with their ideals but it doesn't address the elephant in the room, which is young men not working eno
Video Games vs Porn vs Watching TV vs Pinball vs (Score:2)
Since at least WWII and the rise of "teenagers" there have been an ever increasing number of ways for people to "waste time", and there tends to be more opportunity for younger people to engage in these activities. To claim that video games are somehow different is ludicrous.
This is an example of trolling by academics. They want to pretend that they are relevant so they pick something that they perceive as
Re: And they demand vacation time... (Score:4, Funny)
A little title inflation going on?
Take a 'Bundy vacation' in the office. Stop working. Wear Hawaiian shirts for a week. Say 'aloha' to everyone. Believe it, you're at a luau! Have your staff instruct _everybody_ to humor you, you're 'architects'...Whoever 'they' are, 'they' will give you some time off.
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Didn't you go to High School? Sleeping while sitting up was a Senior level elective.
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If you're so valuable, it should be easier for you to negotiate time off.
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Re: And they demand vacation time... (Score:5, Informative)
As a Brit, I think that is insane, I have 5.6 weeks of legally mandated paid leave per year, that is the minimum they are allowed to get away with. My old job gave me 32 days per year, Americans are all bonkers for putting up with the way companies treat you.
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This. I look forward to July every year since my useless coworkers are allowed to take their vacation time. I can get more done with fewer distractions. I work with thirty-eight other programmers, and today there's only two of us in the office since most people took off today since tomorrow is a holiday. It's awesome.
See, now I like it when there's no one else around because I can get away with doing fuck all. Plus, I work in a college and it's a ghost town round here in summers so it's doubleplusgood.
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Re:Why don't companies give us more hours? (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies are happy to give employees more hours.
They are just not willing to give more pay.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
I don't think it's that fewer young men are failing to become fathers, it's that fewer young men are failing to become married. There are a lot of single mothers that simply decide to live off the "generosity" of the government instead of marrying the fathers of their children. Without the incentive to provide for a family young men will choose to continue living the life much like they did in their teens. An extended adolescence if you will.
Also, women have been getting encouragement to join the workfor
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There are a lot of single mothers
Less now than in the past.
that simply decide to live off the "generosity" of the government
Our state will hunt you down. If you are a baby daddy and mom decides to live off the dole, they will find you. And you will pay.
Re:Mostly down to the drop in teen births, probabl (Score:4, Insightful)
Our state will hunt you down. If you are a baby daddy and mom decides to live off the dole, they will find you. And you will pay.
This insane attitude is precisely a BIG reason more and more of these young men just opt out of having relationships and/or families altogether. They know the socjus whiteknights (and/or tradcon wannabes) like yourself are drooling at the opportunity to wave those righteous fingers before throwing them in debtor's prison where, ironically, they can't do shit about making money for anyone. Of course, the obviousness of the latter escapes the irrationality of those who imposed such laws in the first place.
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All these problems are solved by legal 75th trimester abortions.
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Who watches porn for an hour?! You looking for a plot??
[John]
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Said the slave owner to the slave...
But seriously, this isn't going to end well. Why does someone need to 'grow up', basically you're trying to ridicule someone into conforming to your societal standards. Why should these guys checking out be a problem in a free society?
Re:The double standard is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Waah snowflake. You have no idea how lucky you are.
Yeah, and that's why men are checking out. They say "the deck is stacked against us" and society replies with shaming language. Then, they check out.
Working longer and harder is a choice, and yet here you are trying to shame them into fitting your expectations. Good luck with that.
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You may be in a wheelchair
Mobility scooter for fatsos (dad will build you a ramp out of the daylight basement).
drooling on yourself and shitting in your pants while watching cartoons or Matlock marathons.
Or playing MMORPGs.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
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SCHOOLS ARE FUCKING EXPENSIVE TO BUILD INSTANTLY.
They really shouldn't be. It's just that mounting regulations have turned them into day care centers. For colleges, tuition is artificially inflated thanks to government guaranteed loans.
HOSPITALS ARE FUCKING EXPENSIVE TO BUILD INSTANTLY.
Of course. When there's a glut of insurance pools paying the fees, they'll go up because that's what the market will bear. Making it mandatory (like obamacare does) will help make this worse.
ROADS ARE FUCKING EXPENSIVE TO BUILD INSTANTLY.
They really shouldn't be. If they are, there's bloat somewhere. Find it and eliminate it. Government contracts are almost always way
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Because the multiplayer in Doom 2016 sucks?