<story><title>Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)</title><url>https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/08/15/men-not-at-work-why-so-many-men-ages-of-25-to-54-are-not-working/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Frondo</author><text>What I&amp;#x27;d do is this:&lt;p&gt;1) Vote for politicians who are going to create real structural change in society, e.g. Bernie, not just systems maintainers like Hillary, or rich guys who want to rip us off, like the guy who won.  (And really work at a local level to enact structural systems changes!)&lt;p&gt;2) Work to change the cultural baggage around one&amp;#x27;s value being tied to one&amp;#x27;s day job.  Make it sexy to be a poet, writer, singer, househusband, whatever, derive personal&amp;#x2F;interpersonal value from something other than a career.  (And again, work at a local level to make it OK not to have a big thriving career, since it&amp;#x27;s not gonna happen for a lot of folks.)&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s what I&amp;#x27;d do.  The system of &amp;quot;men are worth something because of their career&amp;quot; is broken, and will never come back.  I wouldn&amp;#x27;t even try to resuscitate it.</text></item><item><author>J-dawg</author><text>So what do you do when there simply aren&amp;#x27;t enough jobs for most men to &amp;quot;have their shit together&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;What are all those men going to do when they have both no stake in the economy, and little or no chance of finding a woman to love them? What percentage of men like this can society handle before some sort of tipping point is reached?&lt;p&gt;I refer you to this comment from &amp;quot;wingless&amp;quot; from another discussion currently on the front page:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=13795855&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=13795855&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m always aware of this whenever the usual stuff about the &amp;quot;gender pay gap&amp;quot; gets trotted out by the media. Men and men women are playing entirely different games in the employment market. A woman is working for the money and whatever satisfaction she derives from the job itself. A man is working for his ability to attract a girlfriend, his status in society, his entire sense of &amp;quot;value&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s hardly surprising that men are motivated to choose riskier and higher earning careers.</text></item><item><author>Frondo</author><text>Yes, this, a thousand times this.&lt;p&gt;People look at stuff like alimony or whatever and think &amp;quot;oh women just get all the breaks&amp;quot;.  When really, stuff like that exists because women were expected to forego career for marriage, etc., essentially shackled to a man for life.&lt;p&gt;Women being independent, expecting a guy to have his shit together?  I think that&amp;#x27;s great.  I say bring it on.  Independent women are far more interesting to talk to, and if I have to have a good job lined up, well, that&amp;#x27;s how you play the game.&lt;p&gt;Now...if society is breaking in a way that it&amp;#x27;s tough for men to get good jobs, then let&amp;#x27;s look at that.  Women aren&amp;#x27;t to blame for that, though.  Let&amp;#x27;s look at what&amp;#x27;s really going on.</text></item><item><author>bobbytherobot</author><text>&amp;gt; One generation behind us, women still sort of relied on men, and now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise.&lt;p&gt;You mean the system was heavily stacked to make women reliant on men. I won&amp;#x27;t call that a compromise.&lt;p&gt;The tables haven&amp;#x27;t turned, the game changed. We have drastically removed many of the forces meant to keep women as dependents of men. If the tables had turned, then men would be systematically be kept out of jobs, particularly high paying careers. They most certainly are not being kept out of those jobs.</text></item><item><author>jokoon</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve started some treatment recently, and for some reason I immediately started dating and looking for mates again.&lt;p&gt;I quickly realized how difficult it is. You can&amp;#x27;t find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. I don&amp;#x27;t want to ride the whole mensright bandwagon or to criticize feminism, but it can be a difficult source of unhappiness for some.&lt;p&gt;I dated this young mother of two who managed to be a teacher for kids, she got help from her middle class parents, I can really say that when you feel the class struggle seeping into your love life, it is a very weird feeling. Of course it&amp;#x27;s not the only reason, I&amp;#x27;m not saying it, but it can the source of other problems.&lt;p&gt;One generation behind us, women still sort of relied on men, and now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise.&lt;p&gt;Not to mention the whole tinder generation which is making things a little weirder.&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;p&gt;This comment is full of personal opinion, so take it with a big grain of salt.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DaUR</author><text>&amp;gt; Work to change the cultural baggage around one&amp;#x27;s value being tied to one&amp;#x27;s day job. Make it sexy to be a poet, writer, singer, househusband, whatever, derive personal&amp;#x2F;interpersonal value from something other than a career. (And again, work at a local level to make it OK not to have a big thriving career, since it&amp;#x27;s not gonna happen for a lot of folks.)&lt;p&gt;I really hate (nothing personal) this &amp;quot;wishful-thinking&amp;quot; type of activism (&amp;quot;we really need to do...!&amp;quot;. You want to change women&amp;#x27;s sexual preferences? How, through CRISPR? How will you &amp;quot;work at a local level&amp;quot; to make fat 50 year olds with high school diplomas more attractive to women?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;men are worth something because of their career&amp;quot; is broken, and will never come back&lt;p&gt;Instead of saying that, how about saying that everybody, including 50 year olds in mainland America, deserves the opportunity of a good job? It&amp;#x27;s like saying &amp;quot;fat people should be just as attractive&amp;quot; instead of just losing weight.&lt;p&gt;The current situation is not a refutation of &amp;quot;men are worth something because of their career&amp;quot;, just a confirmation. It doesn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;have to come back&amp;quot;, because it never left. This is how it has been, is, and will be. You&amp;#x27;re saying men without ambition or money are entitled to relationships, which they&amp;#x27;re not. Some people just can&amp;#x27;t compete, doesn&amp;#x27;t make the competition obsolete.</text></comment>
<story><title>Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)</title><url>https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/08/15/men-not-at-work-why-so-many-men-ages-of-25-to-54-are-not-working/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Frondo</author><text>What I&amp;#x27;d do is this:&lt;p&gt;1) Vote for politicians who are going to create real structural change in society, e.g. Bernie, not just systems maintainers like Hillary, or rich guys who want to rip us off, like the guy who won.  (And really work at a local level to enact structural systems changes!)&lt;p&gt;2) Work to change the cultural baggage around one&amp;#x27;s value being tied to one&amp;#x27;s day job.  Make it sexy to be a poet, writer, singer, househusband, whatever, derive personal&amp;#x2F;interpersonal value from something other than a career.  (And again, work at a local level to make it OK not to have a big thriving career, since it&amp;#x27;s not gonna happen for a lot of folks.)&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s what I&amp;#x27;d do.  The system of &amp;quot;men are worth something because of their career&amp;quot; is broken, and will never come back.  I wouldn&amp;#x27;t even try to resuscitate it.</text></item><item><author>J-dawg</author><text>So what do you do when there simply aren&amp;#x27;t enough jobs for most men to &amp;quot;have their shit together&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;What are all those men going to do when they have both no stake in the economy, and little or no chance of finding a woman to love them? What percentage of men like this can society handle before some sort of tipping point is reached?&lt;p&gt;I refer you to this comment from &amp;quot;wingless&amp;quot; from another discussion currently on the front page:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=13795855&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=13795855&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m always aware of this whenever the usual stuff about the &amp;quot;gender pay gap&amp;quot; gets trotted out by the media. Men and men women are playing entirely different games in the employment market. A woman is working for the money and whatever satisfaction she derives from the job itself. A man is working for his ability to attract a girlfriend, his status in society, his entire sense of &amp;quot;value&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s hardly surprising that men are motivated to choose riskier and higher earning careers.</text></item><item><author>Frondo</author><text>Yes, this, a thousand times this.&lt;p&gt;People look at stuff like alimony or whatever and think &amp;quot;oh women just get all the breaks&amp;quot;.  When really, stuff like that exists because women were expected to forego career for marriage, etc., essentially shackled to a man for life.&lt;p&gt;Women being independent, expecting a guy to have his shit together?  I think that&amp;#x27;s great.  I say bring it on.  Independent women are far more interesting to talk to, and if I have to have a good job lined up, well, that&amp;#x27;s how you play the game.&lt;p&gt;Now...if society is breaking in a way that it&amp;#x27;s tough for men to get good jobs, then let&amp;#x27;s look at that.  Women aren&amp;#x27;t to blame for that, though.  Let&amp;#x27;s look at what&amp;#x27;s really going on.</text></item><item><author>bobbytherobot</author><text>&amp;gt; One generation behind us, women still sort of relied on men, and now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise.&lt;p&gt;You mean the system was heavily stacked to make women reliant on men. I won&amp;#x27;t call that a compromise.&lt;p&gt;The tables haven&amp;#x27;t turned, the game changed. We have drastically removed many of the forces meant to keep women as dependents of men. If the tables had turned, then men would be systematically be kept out of jobs, particularly high paying careers. They most certainly are not being kept out of those jobs.</text></item><item><author>jokoon</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve started some treatment recently, and for some reason I immediately started dating and looking for mates again.&lt;p&gt;I quickly realized how difficult it is. You can&amp;#x27;t find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. I don&amp;#x27;t want to ride the whole mensright bandwagon or to criticize feminism, but it can be a difficult source of unhappiness for some.&lt;p&gt;I dated this young mother of two who managed to be a teacher for kids, she got help from her middle class parents, I can really say that when you feel the class struggle seeping into your love life, it is a very weird feeling. Of course it&amp;#x27;s not the only reason, I&amp;#x27;m not saying it, but it can the source of other problems.&lt;p&gt;One generation behind us, women still sort of relied on men, and now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise.&lt;p&gt;Not to mention the whole tinder generation which is making things a little weirder.&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;p&gt;This comment is full of personal opinion, so take it with a big grain of salt.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bilbo0s</author><text>I know this will sound pretty bad...&lt;p&gt;but I actually interact a lot, in a volunteer capacity, with the black community where I live. I&amp;#x27;m just realizing that I&amp;#x27;ve never noticed that the whole &amp;quot;men are worth something because of their career&amp;quot; thing there. I&amp;#x27;m not passing relative value judgements or anything, but I do wonder if there is something sociologically about black american subculture that makes women look past all that???&lt;p&gt;I am not a woman. So I can only say what I see, (and there seems to be a lower tendency towards marriage in their community anyway). But from what I see... there are black female doctors with laid off garbagemen for instance. I see self employed business women with unemployed guys. (Generally laid off laborers.) I see a lot of really high ranking corporate vp or law firm type women with teachers&amp;#x2F;community organizer types. (That one happens a lot.) Couples like these constitute a sizable portion of what I would call the &amp;quot;black middle class&amp;quot; where I am. And of course, you have the regular couples that look like what we would call more traditional, with both parties working at the same level. But that doesn&amp;#x27;t happen NEARLY as often as you&amp;#x27;d think, and the egalitarian pairings also don&amp;#x27;t seem to last as long as the high ranking female-low ranking male pairings. (Divorce-wise I mean.)&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s the thing though... I can&amp;#x27;t actually recall ever coming across a couple where the man was &amp;quot;higher ranking&amp;quot; than the woman??? There are probably a few out there, but I don&amp;#x27;t come across them in my interactions.&lt;p&gt;I never thought about that until I read through this thread.&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting to look through some of these smaller communities to find out how they deal with what seems to be slowly happening in the larger society. Just throwing that out there because they seem to be further down the road towards this &amp;quot;jobless&amp;quot; economic system. The reasons may be really simple. ie - maybe they just have a different culture??? And that&amp;#x27;s fine. Or maybe it&amp;#x27;s that the pressures on women in certain american subcultures are different??? Or whatever??? Who knows??? As I said... I&amp;#x27;m not a woman... but I think it would be worth looking at.&lt;p&gt;The more I think about it... the more differences there are popping into my mind right now. It really is fascinating. I never stopped to think about it before.</text></comment>