<story><title>Some 4.5M Japanese aged between 35 and 54 are living with their parents</title><url>http://in.reuters.com/article/japan-ageing-singles-idINKBN17K2OQ</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sandworm101</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t see the &amp;quot;illusions&amp;quot;.  It isn&amp;#x27;t as if these people are daily choosing their life.  There aren&amp;#x27;t huge numbers of well-paid jobs out there for them or anyone else.  Just because someone isn&amp;#x27;t successful doesn&amp;#x27;t mean they are under some sort of illusion.  The word &amp;quot;parasite&amp;quot; also implies that these people should somehow stop living, that they are such a drain that the parasite should just let got and die rather than continue the only life available to them.&lt;p&gt;They may have made some mistakes, but in previous generations a few mistakes now and again was not a life sentence.  A few years off the books wasn&amp;#x27;t a big deal in the 80s or 90s.  Now any gap in your linkedin profile is interrogated.  In Japan and elsewhere, anyone with a blot on their employment record is doomed.  And heaven help those with any criminal convictions.  Our societies today deliberately push away so many people.  It is improper of us to then say that it is entirely their fault or that they suffer illusions.  The illusion is ours, that by shunning and dispossessing people for slight imperfections we only amplify them.&lt;p&gt;Once upon a time there was a net of reasonable jobs that didn&amp;#x27;t pay well but allowed people a life, low-level government jobs that took anyone willing to work hard.  But has anyone here looked at how hard it is to become a postal worker or to join the army?  Ability and willingness is no longer enough.  (I have relatives in the Canadian Armed Forces.  The application process takes at least one and sometimes many years.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>phs318u</author><text>Direct quote from the first subject:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I got used to living in an unstable situation and figured somehow it would work out&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;That last bit is illusory thinking.&lt;p&gt;Also, I&amp;#x27;d beg to differ on your suggestion that these people aren&amp;#x27;t choosing their life every single day. I&amp;#x27;d suggest the opposite is true for most of us (leaving aside those who through incapacity have diminished options). Every single day you don&amp;#x27;t make an effort to look for work, don&amp;#x27;t volunteer for something, don&amp;#x27;t organise an activity, don&amp;#x27;t spend some time learning something, don&amp;#x27;t go somewhere to meet people, don&amp;#x27;t go on a date - you are making a choice. Living with your parents and (more importantly) living off your parents well into your fifties is not an accident. You can&amp;#x27;t accidentally do that. That is directly the result of daily choices and illusory thinking.&lt;p&gt;And while we can agreee that the term &amp;quot;parasite&amp;quot; is pejorative, I find it is deserved- at least from the perspective of the parent (who in this case is probably as much to blame for this situation).&lt;p&gt;My daughters are 20 and 18 and the expectation has long been set in our family that they will be moving out once they&amp;#x27;re in stable employment (and by that I mean any job that can pay their bills, not their dream job). When both kids are out of the house, we&amp;#x27;ll downsize and share some of the cashed out equity to help them get started on the property ladder. Then they&amp;#x27;re on their own. In our family we refer to this as &amp;quot;The Plan&amp;quot;. They&amp;#x27;ve been hearing about the Plan (and been onboard) since their early teens.</text></comment>
<story><title>Some 4.5M Japanese aged between 35 and 54 are living with their parents</title><url>http://in.reuters.com/article/japan-ageing-singles-idINKBN17K2OQ</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sandworm101</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t see the &amp;quot;illusions&amp;quot;.  It isn&amp;#x27;t as if these people are daily choosing their life.  There aren&amp;#x27;t huge numbers of well-paid jobs out there for them or anyone else.  Just because someone isn&amp;#x27;t successful doesn&amp;#x27;t mean they are under some sort of illusion.  The word &amp;quot;parasite&amp;quot; also implies that these people should somehow stop living, that they are such a drain that the parasite should just let got and die rather than continue the only life available to them.&lt;p&gt;They may have made some mistakes, but in previous generations a few mistakes now and again was not a life sentence.  A few years off the books wasn&amp;#x27;t a big deal in the 80s or 90s.  Now any gap in your linkedin profile is interrogated.  In Japan and elsewhere, anyone with a blot on their employment record is doomed.  And heaven help those with any criminal convictions.  Our societies today deliberately push away so many people.  It is improper of us to then say that it is entirely their fault or that they suffer illusions.  The illusion is ours, that by shunning and dispossessing people for slight imperfections we only amplify them.&lt;p&gt;Once upon a time there was a net of reasonable jobs that didn&amp;#x27;t pay well but allowed people a life, low-level government jobs that took anyone willing to work hard.  But has anyone here looked at how hard it is to become a postal worker or to join the army?  Ability and willingness is no longer enough.  (I have relatives in the Canadian Armed Forces.  The application process takes at least one and sometimes many years.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>devoply</author><text>&amp;gt; Once upon a time there was a net of reasonable jobs that didn&amp;#x27;t pay well but allowed people a life, low-level government jobs that took anyone willing to work hard. But has anyone here looked at how hard it is to become a postal worker or to join the army? Ability and willingness isn&amp;#x27;t enough any more.&lt;p&gt;This is all about Neoliberalism then isn&amp;#x27;t it. Privatize everything and then the privatized companies are highly competitive and only want the best and couldn&amp;#x27;t care less about the middle or the bottom. It&amp;#x27;s not about jobs, it&amp;#x27;s really never been about the jobs that&amp;#x27;s just rhetoric. It&amp;#x27;s about profits. And profits are stuck in large consolidated corporations that pay as little as possible to the middle and the bottom, preferably on contract or the &amp;quot;sharing&amp;quot; economy of contractors. For full-time employees with benefits they just want the top which is often overworked. I mean the economy was engineered to be like this specifically for the benefit of those with money.</text></comment>