Some are living in their parents basement until they're 30 to 40. It has been hypothesized that with the breakdown of families in the US, men are giving up, and that includes efforts to build a stable foundation for their family. See MGTOW but dont read too much, it can be kind of depressing.
It's not uncommon to read comments on Hacker News or twitter from men feeling that they seen as less valid for doing less traditional activities[2][3] (eg: caring for children, prioritizing their careers less, being less traditionally forward, etc.) and I think society is going to need to change to acknowledge this better for both men and women.
[1] https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/blog/details/1594/est...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21775631
[3] https://twitter.com/SpaceCptZemo/status/1215034934319964160
EDIT: Am I allowed to interpret downvotes as "nah i dont want it that way the world is Malthusian"? Nothing would make me happier.
That last word is the key point. Men receive less judgment for remaining single than women, but they also receive more judgment if they don't work. That's a reason we're much more willing to code an unemployed or underemployed man as a "loser" than we are to do so a woman.
Still though, I think there are dimensions of this where this is less true, perhaps in ways that men are expected to seem "confident" or "strong" or "independent" which I think can be stiffing. The typical men's section of a clothing store normalizes a lot more conservative wardrobes compared to women. I wish I had better words to explain it.
Yep, and women demand this too: many women's dating profiles talk about how they want a guy who's "confident but not cocky", who "makes a plan" for dates, who "takes the lead", etc. Basically, American women want hyper-masculine men who look like George Clooney (when younger), but then they sit around complaining about "toxic masculinity" and how they're mistreated by men.
>The typical men's section of a clothing store normalizes a lot more conservative wardrobes compared to women.
Men's fashion is truly horrible compared to women's fashion. Men basically have the choice of either a stuffy suit that look like it hasn't changed in a century and is completely impractical, or baggy pants and a baggy hoody. Women get all kinds of choices in clothes, including lots which show off their bodies, while men's clothes are basically designed to hide our bodies completely and look as boring as possible. I guess that's helpful if you're fat, but if you're athletic and toned, it's really not.
I don't believe men's fashion is horrible, but I think the sheer variety and design quality of clothing available to women is pretty impressive.
But then, to be honest, that's consumer driven. Some will harangue me for pointing out that a great majority of women love looking good and put vast amounts of time and money into it, between clothing, accessories and makeup. As such they've a much wider market of choice as producers try to attract that demand.
Men have nice options. As I brought up a stereotype above, I'll bring one up now which holds as true - a vast majority of men put little or no effort into their own appearance and with obesity rates heightening it's only getting worse.
I've only briefly touched it but check out the Thread app if you want an idea of good looking outfits available to guys at various price ranges. I'm not sure of alternatives, as I generally just shop / dress myself with some effort, but it certainly looks like it both offers great variety while also taking out a lot of the guess work, an example being you can state if you've wide thighs and they won't show you pants that won't accommodate that.
Not in any way associated with Thread fwiw.
Strongly disagree—you may just not have been exposed to all the options in men's fashion. There are tons, without even deviating too far from traditional/normal.
Right now, most men's fashion is terrible in terms of how it models the waist. Put on anything that you consider to be fashionable, and then see how well your hip-hinge and thighs-parallel squats do. No wonder the Scottish loved their kilts!
A trip to a women's clothing store would disprove the notion that women don't have choices very quickly.
What choices for bottoms do men have that aren't trousers? There's shorts if the weather's warm enough (though there seem to be a bunch of weird men out there wearing shorts in freezing weather for some reason), but that's it.
Don't forget the colors. Dress too colorfully as a man, and people think you're gay. So we usually end up sticking with darker, solid colors.
I don't wear either of these on a daily basis, nor my birthday suit, and people think that I dress nice. Men have a plethora of clothing options that are stylish, comfortable, and appropriate for work situations. I'm currently wearing slacks that are designed to feel like sweat pants and a thick cotton button up shirt.
Women have it pretty bad when it comes to clothes shopping. Men take for granted that we all are roughly the same shape, so most of us can shop at the same stores. It's not like that for women.
Women come in many different shapes. So you look and see that a clothing store has twice as many jeans for women as they do for men, but don't realize that all of those are split over four or five styles that are mutually exclusive: most women can only fit into one, maybe two styles. But for men, most of us can wear slim fit, regular fit, bootcut, etc jeans.
This same phenomenon extends to stores as well. Lots of women's clothing brands specialize in a certain shape of woman.
I read this frequently, but it just seems flat wrong, I think men just have lower expectations about how clothes should fit, and there is less expectation that men stay slim. I’m trim and fit, and I can only buy from a couple of brands if I want clothes that fit me well without being skin tight. I’m not alone. There is a great variety of shoulder geometries for men, I remember hearing on JRE, but I can’t find a source to link, that their is a huge of amount of variation in men’s(everyone’s?) shoulders, probably due to Homo sapiens evolving to hunt with overhand thrown rocks. I could be flat wrong, but I detest this, “men’s bodies are mostly the same” attitude, you can definitely tell the difference between someone wearing a well tailored suit and someone who isn’t. I’m pretty sure men just have lower standards/expectations.
Difficulty: you have to know what to look for in fit so you can diagnose what's wrong with a given article if it's not quite right.
My theory right now is simply that on average women have the will power to spend enough time and energy on the task regardless... men might have the desire to look good, but when faced with the reality of time and money required to achieve it say fuck no, it doesn't hold their interest enough.
Compared to women, men have less choice in clothing and don't drive the market in the way women's choices do.
As a trim, broad-shouldered 5'2" guy, I had to laugh at your entire comment. I have literally never found a shirt or jacket that fits off the rack from... dozens? Hundreds? of different brands.
My bet is that you fall into a conventionally masculine body shape, and you universalize your own experience to all men.
What kinds of masculine-coded clothing articles would you like to see?
Everything in your comment implies you are the last person who should be asserting what woman want.
Just because you can have an erection and produce sperm at 70 doesn't mean you can have children and if you do they'll most likely suffer from down syndrome or other conditions.
Having kids after 45 as a male carries risks for the children as well.
Please cite something for this assertion or delete it, as it is not in line with anything I've read on the matter.
Increased paternal age carries some potential for increased side effects for their children, but it is absolutely nowhere near the risks involved in a delayed pregnancy for women [0].
[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/well/family/older-fathers...
An order of magnitude higher chance of genetic defects isn’t very significant when the initial risk is less than .1%
That is an interesting angle. What do you think is going to change, and what is going to cause it to change?
It may be unusual for a man to stay home and take care of the children while his wife works. But the idea that I could ever stigmatize or criticism someone for this life arrangement is ridiculous to me. I'm sure that 40 years ago most men would only be able to respond with criticism. But these days that kind of reaction is laughable. And the men who have that kind of reaction would be viewed as backwards simpletons.
In terms of what is causing it to change, I think is deindustrialization and the nature of a capitalist, individualist society. If your peers or culture are asking you to be “masculine” as a hunter gatherer, Breton-Woods-era American tradesman, or Jay Gatsby-type, you’re going to feel out of place if you don’t feel like that’s how you want to live your life.
Much like how first wave feminism was a response to advanced in pressure vessels producing distilled alchohols, and second wave was a response to the obsolescance of muscle in manufacturing, so too is 3rd wave feminism the response to the key technologies of social media and contraceptives.
We've replaced the concept of a couple investing in eachother from a young age to build a nuclear family with college, debt and a status symbol competition; Social media and dating apps have cast relationships and sex as something that you purchase like a product, and they advertise to women that they too are a product, and that they are more valuable than 90% of men. When you remove the risk of STD's and pregnancy, advertise to women that the ability to act like a masterbation toy improves their "social worth" with no consequences. It's a disgusting trade but it has prooven unbelievably effective. The business model of OKCupid is to dissaude their audience from viewing relationships as investments so they instead invest time in OKCupid. Many women have shut themselves off from men approaching them entirely until they can fully vet them online first. The flip side of this is the "top dogs" become unbelievably pessimistic about, and often abusive of, women.
Today a newborn male child has a 1 in 2 shot at procreating (US Census data for Males never married, no children; look at the growth rate); that's 60 to 100 million men, TODAY, who are in search of a purpose in their lives that won't be fulfilled by a family. Ever. Replacement fertility is 2.1 births per women; we're at 1.7. When the USSR Collapsed they were down to 1.3. The dislocation this has produced is absolutely massive and is what is behind birth rate declines in western countries.
What nobody wants to talk about is how much of a powderkeg that will become when those men reach the end of their economic and reproductive utility and determine, rightfully so, they have been been screwed over. The reason you get the CEO of cloudflare blanning white supremacist material isn't because he REALLY hates those kinds of people; it's because the population is becoming a powderkeg and group identity politics is a VERY bad way for that to go. Every revolution has been predicated upon the concept of society losing it's concept of self-respect and dignity, and so devoid of those concepts, unable to engineer them into the solutions they impliment. After the french killed the aristocracy, they engaged in the reign of terror.
No amount of engaging in psychological warfare exercises selling information pollution such as the concept of a "CISGender" or taking down websites is going to change billions of years of evolution or the consequences of bad policy. I'm all for studies on sexuality but they have to be realistic; it is, like psychology, a complex topic.
If you like malthusianism, the approach of allowing the next wave of feminism take it's toll is about as tactful of a way of going about doing it as using a AAMRAM to kill a baby. The kind of generational complex trauma and resulting child maldevelopment this is going to create is not what suites any kind of functioning society well; all you have to do is look at the chicago ghetto's and the never-ending cycle of violence to understand that. The Chinese with their 1 child policy is far wiser for contrast. Think about it; you allow nuclear families and hey they really invest a heck of a lot into that one kid with the government stepping in to ensure it works out.
As far as the roles go in relationships, the correct way to look at it is, the two people in the relationship make the decisions, and if you have something to say about it, go to hell.
Real housewives of x city...??? I just don't get it! I feel autistic. You can really see how far we have fallen when this type of stuff turns people on, and not only does it make a buck but so much more.
How is it that people don't see the narcissism and immorality that is portrayed and profited off of.
I mean, how can someone like teresa and joe giudice get caught doing things with loan applications and financial fraud that lead to our(usa) economic implosion, yet they still have a viewership and profit off of this.
Sorry to rant but I have to. I have a therory and would like opinions. In a semi-perfect economic system all actors trying to start and run a business would play by the rules. In the system today we know people are not perfect. Some are flawed and make decisions they know are illegal because of the situation their companies are in. Others just want to be on top and will do what they can as long as the scales will tip in their favor in the end, ie fines are less than profit.
As the number of people increase and the market increases the number of actors who are willingly doing these actions becomes more and more. In the end the only ones on the top, the only ones with money, are the ones who are willing to take calculated risk that include breaking the law and the morals of the society they live in.
I claim we live in a time where the vast majority of those in power and those with money have gotten there by the use of illegal means.
If you look at the bush family their great grandfather ran drugs into china illegally. A lot of beer and hard liqueur companies started out during or continued during prohibition. Walmarts own Sam walton under paid employees and then when the feds said he had to pay them he threatened that any one that cashed the check would be fired.
They say with that the milk cream rises to the top, and that is true for a certain amount of time. If you wait longer it is the stench of rot and decay the comes to the top. A stable system will always be over taken by rule breakers, hacker, criminals, an immoralist.
My point was that I think society will broaden its view on what a good life for men looks like. I think it will help a lot of the difficult things you mention. I think people will eventually agree with your closing statement much more than they do now. Could you help me understand what you think I’m misguided about? I genuinely don’t understand.
I understand this is considered a bad thing, and it makes sense at a societal level, but honestly it sounds like a pretty amazing life. Maybe that would have been boring and depressing pre-internet, but it seems pretty good now.
I know one dude who essentially grifted his way into the disability system, and I've watched him go from an anxious mess to a budding artist, literally living in his mom's basement. All he does is read the internet, take classes, and paint. His art keeps getting better. If he lives in his parent's basement for another decade, he might emerge as a great artist. Frankly, I'm kind of jealous.
The obvious down side is that he has a hard time finding a date, and family interaction is not optional. IMO those are both relatively minor penalties for a lifetime of freedom.
The real inexplicable thing here is how parents are letting this happen? I was never under any illusion that I'd be able to receive indefinite support from my parents, and society has given me every possible indication that this isn't an acceptable strategy.
Maybe we need an acceptable way for people who can't mentally handle work to be able to exist in society.
Old reference but the classic song "Scrubs" by TLC is is about not wanting to date a "scrub" and describes a "scrub" as "lives at home with your mama"
Conversely, in many Asian countries it's common to live at home until well into your 30s and 40s. In know families in most Asian countries where 3 generations live in the same house.
You can go through the dating sites in various countries here and see 30, 40, 50yr olds still living in their parents house. (it's a standard question on many Asian oriented dating sites) They may have studied abroad, or lived else where for a while but moved back in and no one blinks an eye. There's no or very little stigma unlike the USA.
Banks, Weddings, and Real Estate. Those 3 combined have made it the "American Dream" to buy a girl a fossilized carbon rock "worth" several times your monthly income, throw a big party at a cost exceeding most peoples yearly income, have 2.5 kids, and buy a home several times more than your yearly income
Anything less that massive debt and obtaining this "ideal" "American Dream" means your a loser
agreed. in america, the "acceptable way" is rapidly becoming suicide. of course, it's unacceptable. but that's what we've left people with.
I can understand suicide rather than work, but that only takes you as far as "not working". I want to get to "not working so I can follow my passions".
That is in part exactly the purpose of a UBI (or Andrew Yang's Freedom Dividend(tm)). To provide people with basic necessities so they can minimally survive without work.
What are the alternatives? Turn him out and see him become homeless?
Another option is to be so toxic about the situation that you force the child out of the house. That's what would have happened to me, so I left before that.
I initially felt on-the-fence about this but upon further thought I absolutely disagree with the idea.
Society works and thrives when we've a common goal (all working to make things slightly better for everyone one bit at a time) and honest reciprocal agreements as one.
I am happy to partake in a society where the majority are trying their best for themselves and others, to support them when they fall down and want to get back up, or to step out of the workforce to procreate or retrain, to provide healthcare for all, access to housing, education etc.
I don't mind paying a little more if everyone who's willing to try their best to lean in to society and contribute gets the support and opportunity to do so, even if there's a disproportionate difference in outcome i.e. if all you're capable of doing is flipping burgers, parking cars, collecting trash, etc. then that's fine, just do your best at it.
I absolutely will not support those who just want to opt-out, unless safeguards were put in place to ensure their malignant genes stopped with them at the end of their days. I would also absolutely not support extending the right to vote to such people.
You get out what you put in. It's ok to try and fail, or fall ill, or struggle with a mental illness. It's good for a society to be there to help you pick yourself back up, to become well, and try again. It's the intent that counts. If you (the rhetorical you) merely want to sit on the sidelines because "life's too tough" then I'm sorry but you won't be doing it on my dime, or trying to sway the direction of my society with voter rights.
I don't think we can really know what makes society thrive, and some of the traditional measures like unemployment and productivity may not be the right ones to use.
I think the answer is in some sort of UBI, where everyone can have a base level of existence for "free", but if you want nice things, you have to work for them. It seems to me that we would hit an equilibrium where everyone who's content not working can leech a little, but people who do want to work will have much greater rewards and would be higher quality workers.
Based on the number of people that I've met who are concerned about status symbols and having the latest and greatest toys, I suspect we'd see most people actually working in a UBI scenario. We would certainly see more risk takers, which could be the best possible thing for society.
I'd like to think that I would have founded a startup by now if I didn't need an income.
That's not an argument against UBI - I mostly agree with your analysis and solution - but I wouldn't be so dismissive of individuals' desire to improve their lives directly. It's not "greed" to want some control over your living standards and situation.
> unless safeguards were put in place to ensure their malignant genes stopped with them at the end of their days.
As if it’s their genetics and not their disenfranchisement from society that makes them want to drop out. We allow cheap foreign labor to displace these people, if we had stricter immigration I can guarantee that there would be less people in poverty, business would have to pay more to incentivize people to work there.
And we hardly help men “pick themselves back up”.
>you get what you put in.
lol, that’s a good one, I’m sure the Koch brothers would agree.
Plenty of people put in a lot and don’t get much back. Just because life worked out great for you—you put in effort and saw a return—doesn’t mean it works that way for everyone. I personally worked my ass off for 5 years and then got screwed out of my work by people with more money.
>voter rights
Am I getting trolled? You seriously want to associate voting rights with employment? Here I thought we left those sorts of attitudes in the last century.
Dude, I worked especially hard for 13 years and got screwed badly. You are lucky that you got that knowledge in 5 years that hard work does not equate to anything and did not waste a lot of time.
Most of the people who graduated with me found loopholes in the system and are more successful exploiting it. Very few people took hard work route and even less became successful. (Note: I am not from the US)
>As if it’s their genetics and not their disenfranchisement from society that makes them want to drop out
Some traits are heritable. We know intelligence certainly is. The "highly intelligent, just not driven" thing is a trope. I've lived and spent considerable time in European countries, particularly the British Isles, where they not only have a working class but also a welfare class made up of multi-generational families on welfare and have no intent on giving it up. It's not a significant amount of welfare recipients, but there are many and it's not something that should be encouraged.
Again, society is give and take. Fostering a sub-society of people who merely want to take and not reciprocate is unfair on the rest of society supporting them.
>And we hardly help men “pick themselves back up”.
I don't disagree with that. I'd argue that instead of enabling them to comfortably check-out, do nothing and live off others that the money would be better spent helping them become productive contributors to the society they've asked to be a part of.
>lol, that’s a good one, I’m sure the Koch brothers would agree.
Finding edge cases to point at does nothing for an argument talking about society (and the economy) in general. What I said holds true for the majority of the people.
Even if you want to self-select for an outlier like the Kochs, they're the beneficiaries of the hard work that came before them and whose lineage has both managed their work-earned money well, and taught their descendants to do the same.
Even then, the Koch's provide employment to roughly 100,000 people, 60,000 in the US alone[0], and give billions towards charity.[1]
Charles Koch's monetary charitable contributions alone top a $1bn, or ~2% of his fiscal net worth. How much of yours are handing over in the name of good?
I'm not even advocating for that kind of wealth, but simply pointing at the outlier you've chosen to show that my point actually does hold true - the Koch's employ and pay 100,000 people, people who use that pay to undoubtedly support countless others, while also giving large sums of effort and indeed cash to good causes. They are reaping the benefits from participating in society in an outlandish manner, but they're also contributing in one, environmental issues aside.
>Plenty of people put in a lot and don’t get much back. Just because life worked out great for you—you put in effort and saw a return—doesn’t mean it works that way for everyone. I personally worked my ass off for 5 years and then got screwed out of my work by people with more money.
What you've said is in support of my points, not against it. As I said, trying is what matters. Yes, some people work harder than others. Some people work smarter than others. Some people work harder and smarter. What's important is that everyone is giving it their best. I'm giving it my best, you've given it your best.
Again, as I said, a just society looks after those who are trying. The US, if you want to bring a single country into this (which I have tried to not, as I'm generalizing about society with hypothetical situations, some of which apply to some countries, some to others) is not a just society. I'm not going to sit here and singly talk about the USA.
The discussion came from a statement that society, en large, should facilitate those who don't want to participate. I see no reason why that should be US-centric.
>Am I getting trolled? You seriously want to associate voting rights with employment? Here I thought we left those sorts of attitudes in the last century.
No. I said that in the hypothetical situation that we create a class of people who want to permanently disengage and no longer contribute what they can to society, in doing so rejecting the responsibilities of being part of society, that they should not be extended the same rights as those participating in the society they're opting out from.
An entity who promises to rob Peter to pay Paul can always defend on the support of Paul. Conservatives who promise to reduce welfare or taxes in order to return money to those most affected can always depend on the support of those who will benefit. Leftists who promise to increase welfare and taxes to provide more social services can always depend on the support of those who already receive both. Both are fine, in a society where everyone is trying to do a little better one bit at a time.
People who could hypothetically opt-out permanently and rely on a life provided for by those who are not opting out is not someone who should be empowered to weigh in on decisions affecting those whose charity and good grace they're essentially still breathing from.
I hope none of the above is too outrageous to you, and it shouldn't be if you can sway yourself toward the hypothetical brought up and not concentrate on January 2020's America.
[0] https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/issues/koch-industries-compan...
[1] https://time.com/5413786/charles-koch-charitable-giving/
The article is about the USA, and the problem is specific to the US. It seemed natural that we were still talking about US society. I didn’t intend to provoke you with my bombast, I simply misinterpreted your argument, my apologies.
The first post didn’t elucidate your points well enough for me to put them in context, and it makes a lot more sense given this additional information. I actually agree with almost everything you said in principle! :) But the ambiguity of your previous post left me genuinely upset, as this particular issue hit close to home. I’m glad to have this sorted.
I tend to see a welfare class as an unfortunate inevitability of social welfare programs. The best thing we can do is have strong public education and holistic healthcare system to try and combat a multi-generation welfare class. It’s a difficult problem.
I’ll leave my original post as is, for the sake of prose.
> Maybe we need an acceptable way for people who can't mentally handle work to be able to exist in society.
What does mentally can't handle work even mean.
Animals can work, its that people don't want to work. Just because the reasons are probably more related to society than the individual doesn't mean they can't work.
You mean my coworkers?
> Contriubting nothing back to the scioety that created you?
Sorry, I'll get right back to selling ads.
> Leaving nothing on this earth after your gone then a collection of garbage?
Don't forget a pile of proprietary code.
> What does mentally can't handle work even mean.
It means that some people feel cornered and constant anxiety and occasional panic attacks due to their work obligations. Those people can't handle work.
*either by choice or because they don't live up to society's standards (e.g. hypergamy)
I made the choice about 20 years ago to never marry, and never have children. I own my home, have an amazing career full of growth and future potential and currently am in the top 20% of wage earners.
Had I made a different choice 20 years ago I likely would be married with 2 kids right now, and be making significantly less income likely living paycheck to paycheck struggling to pay rent
What is depressing to me is the belief that family is the only way to have fulfillment in life, and if you choose not to have children you have "given up" on life
There must be so many people that could’ve been revolutionary creatives if they weren’t struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.
I think "basement" has become synonymous with these cases because: 1. It reflects that the person is at least semi-independent (as opposed to children who live within the same space as the parents) 2. It is a bit insulting, reflecting society's view of the situation (it subtly implies antisocial behavior... The basement gamer, for example)
My parents moved my sister into the basement when she grew up because it was basically an apartment. It was a lot bigger than her bedroom, and offered her the chance to accumulate some furniture and stuff that she would need when she moved out.
The basement is an upgrade. It's virtually a bachelor apartment (or a flat, for the Europeans reading), often with its own access, a private bathroom and often a kitchen or kitchenette. They're actually lux enough that they do very well on the rental market in busy cities.
For the child of the adult owners, it's a sort of independent-dependence. Some move down there while trying to save money for their own dwelling, which is probably the most often case, and others move down there, never strive for independence and become the stereotype talked about in this thread.
Providing a big room and privacy for parents and kids.
You can't assume that all decisions were made by males only.
Honestly, the whole 2-married-partner relationship thing seems to only work out well in a small minority of cases.
"living in their parents basement until they're 30 to 40" and then "breakdown of families in the US"
I know you're not necessarily equating those two, but do you think they're related? Thanks!
Houses built before about 1980 has basements best described as a dungeon: you store the harvest down there over winter, and the furnace is there, but you don't go down for any other purpose.
About 1980 styles started changing. Most basements in newer houses are living space - one wall might have no windows (even then there is a fire escape window large enough for that purpose that lets in useful amounts of light), but the other wall is not less than half above ground, and often entirely at grade with a complete door outside. In these newer houses there is often a complete (but small) kitchen, used only for entertaining for those rare times where the entire extended family comes to visit. There will be bedrooms down there. It isn't uncommon to have the parents live there for a few years when they cannot live alone but are not bad enough for the nursing home.
Structurally, the purpose of basements is mostly to get the foundation below the frost line so frost doesn't move the house. That can be covered by one meter or less, which leave plenty of space for windows above ground if you want to use the space. Making the space useful is pretty cheap when you have it anyway.
Note that basements are NOT universal. If there is no frost to worry about they are expensive and not worth it. If the ground water is too high there are other ways to deal with frost.
See TV shows like "That 70s Show" for a prime example.
I cannot imagine living in a windowless room, feels like a dungeon or torture room.
The vast majority, if not all, of basements I've seen in North America have their ceiling above ground level and as such tend to be surrounded with small windows.
Many, but not all, will have their own separate entrance also.
Committing suicide?
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/
It's a horrible observation, as men are obviously in crisis.
There's a large percentage of working age men not in the labor force too.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS15000001
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/beyond-bls/mens-declining-...
Some perhaps they lost prior jobs and did not regain positions of parity, now they're disenfranchised, socially isolated, in some form of despair, or even homeless.
Anecdotally, the homeless populations I see everywhere in the west coast are 99% males aged 25-50.
Young men spend about an 2 hours on games per day, and the numbers for young women is much lower. Young women however spend about 2 hours more on their phones per day more than men. Something seems very similar here if we look at the two activities together rather then in isolation.
I would instead ask what gendered benefit men get from gaming, and women from doing social activities on their phones, and I would guess the answer has something to do with inter-gender competition and status.
And simply socialization. Gaming is socialization for many male gamers - it is their primary or only social circle and friends. It is the main thing they talk about even in person (what tv used to be).
What does "on their phones" mean? This is like saying they spend time "reading books." There are good books and bad books. There are edifying and educational books and pulpy trash books. Just saying "books" says nothing about the productivity.
But what can you expect from a clearly biased news source that, while possibly not wrong, is likely not going to give any benefit of the doubt to people who live life differently from the "good 'ol christian boy" fashion.
What happens as this continues to decline?
Maybe culturally getting married is incredibly more time consuming and difficult than it used to be? I mean I'm reading George Orwell's Burmese days and the main character was trying to propose (and the girl wanted him to) within 2 weeks of knowing eachother! Granted it's a book, but that doesn't sound outside the realms of normalcy, especially in Burma during the 1920's where there were like 1/1000 ratio of white person to native.
There were consequences for that through - partner who hate each other, violence, abuse (verbal, emotional, physical). Alcoholism.
Yeah, the people who pine for the "good old days" when people married for life always leave this part out.
Unincorporated self-employed sounds like tradesmen, laborers, and some kinds of professionals which is a lot of men.
"Nonfarm payrolls" was never meant to be a gender-balanced stat, it just excludes the hardest to track jobs. Which is fine for comparison over time, but makes 50% a meaningless metric.
Also, it doesn't seem to distinguish between part-time and full-time. So a mother working part-time when her kids are at school would count the same as a full-time worker.
(This also screws with the labor force participation stats, since unless you check "prime age" there's no upper age boundary.)
The article claims:
> ... close to 100% of working-age men used to participate in back in the 1950s. Now that figure is 89%, and had been falling up until 2014. Economists cite multiple reasons: lower demand and wages for unskilled uneducated workers, retiring baby boomers, and an opioid crisis that disproportionately affects men.
The stay at home moms might not be that large portion of population.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-hom...
We've had a decade+ of men being told they're useless oppressors, who've earned nothing for themselves, whose "time is up", and that they haven't a place in the future. Couple that with the loss of shared identity in general, the breakdown of the family, the bias in the divorce process, the disappearance of purposeful work and more and it's no surprise that we're in the situation we're in now.
The ever-changing "ideals" and "values" we're building modern society on are as brittle as a house of cards.
A note: I'm a happily married man with a career I enjoy and am optimistic for my own future, so the above isn't coming from some sense of ingrained / developed resentment, merely observation.
That one you can probably place the blame squarely on the conservatives for. That bias made some sense back in the old days when women couldn't possibly hope to get a job that paid anywhere near what her (now ex-)husband earned. But things are completely different now, but the court system is still stuck in the 1950s. Meanwhile, the men who complain about this bias continue to vote for conservatives.
Somehow, I don't think that there are many conservative judges in family courts. Family court judges heavily lean female and liberal.
Many "liberals" in America really aren't that liberal, and women in America generally lean conservative from what I've seen, despite their claims of being liberal. For instance, the number of single women attending church is much higher than the number of single men (find a single woman who identifies as active Christian and ask her if she has any luck finding single guys at church).
https://freebeacon.com/politics/maine-dem-senate-hopeful-lau...
Equal Outcome != Equality of Opportunity.
Unfortunately the two are often conflated in an attempt to imply there is some form of discrimination taking place by people with nefarious motives.