<story><title>Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-11/fewer-young-men-are-in-the-labor-force-more-are-living-at-home</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>magicsmoke</author><text>&amp;gt; Or if you have experienced income instability, and you do not feel comfortable bringing children into the world.&lt;p&gt;Yet poorer developing nations have higher birth rates than developed nations. Is it because they have lower expectations for what their children need to live a &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; life, that they just have more hope that things will work out somehow, or that they somehow don&amp;#x27;t care about these concerns?</text></item><item><author>lotsofpulp</author><text>&amp;gt; What are the things that motivates them, and what do they themselves want to do in life?&lt;p&gt;I suspect quite a few people are looking at the odds of achieving various goals, and simply changing the goals.  Such as owning a home in desirable areas, or having kids if you cannot afford a food school district or a job that allows you to be home for dinner.&lt;p&gt;Or if you have experienced income instability, and you do not feel comfortable bringing children into the world.  I probably would not have if I did not find a spouse with income in the top two quintiles.  Not that there’s nothing wrong with the alternative, but different people have different risk tolerances and higher (perceived) volatility can be a cause for change in some population wide changed we are seeing.</text></item><item><author>belorn</author><text>What are the things that motivates them, and what do they themselves want to do in life?&lt;p&gt;I ask this because much of the undertone in the article and in this thread is about the failure of meeting the gender role expectations that are put on young men. Do they have a job and a car? Have they studied hard so they can get a good job in order to support a wife and kid?&lt;p&gt;Culture in the last several decades have hammered down on the negative aspects of stereotyping. A person who is 35 has gone through a life time of TV, movie and politics that on repeat has talked about the negative of gender roles for women, while the expectations on men has remained fairly unchanged. I do not find it strange at all if an increasing portion of men under this culture has rejected the role put on them.&lt;p&gt;Which goes back to the original question I started with. What motivates them and what do they want to do with their life? If we want to avoid the slow motion tragedy, maybe the way forward is to help them answer those question in the absent of imposed gender roles.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>akiselev</author><text>They&amp;#x27;re largely subsistence farmers with high infant mortality and little to no automation which accounts for about 2 billion people. They need children to work the fields and it makes sense to have a lot of children when the labor turn around time is five years and up to a third of them will be dead by then.&lt;p&gt;The adults pay the &amp;quot;fixed costs&amp;quot; to keep the farm running so each additional child produces more in labor than they consume in resources. They&amp;#x27;re too poor to hire other adults for labor because they have their own &amp;quot;fixed costs&amp;quot; that are much higher than a child in the family.</text></comment>
<story><title>Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-11/fewer-young-men-are-in-the-labor-force-more-are-living-at-home</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>magicsmoke</author><text>&amp;gt; Or if you have experienced income instability, and you do not feel comfortable bringing children into the world.&lt;p&gt;Yet poorer developing nations have higher birth rates than developed nations. Is it because they have lower expectations for what their children need to live a &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; life, that they just have more hope that things will work out somehow, or that they somehow don&amp;#x27;t care about these concerns?</text></item><item><author>lotsofpulp</author><text>&amp;gt; What are the things that motivates them, and what do they themselves want to do in life?&lt;p&gt;I suspect quite a few people are looking at the odds of achieving various goals, and simply changing the goals.  Such as owning a home in desirable areas, or having kids if you cannot afford a food school district or a job that allows you to be home for dinner.&lt;p&gt;Or if you have experienced income instability, and you do not feel comfortable bringing children into the world.  I probably would not have if I did not find a spouse with income in the top two quintiles.  Not that there’s nothing wrong with the alternative, but different people have different risk tolerances and higher (perceived) volatility can be a cause for change in some population wide changed we are seeing.</text></item><item><author>belorn</author><text>What are the things that motivates them, and what do they themselves want to do in life?&lt;p&gt;I ask this because much of the undertone in the article and in this thread is about the failure of meeting the gender role expectations that are put on young men. Do they have a job and a car? Have they studied hard so they can get a good job in order to support a wife and kid?&lt;p&gt;Culture in the last several decades have hammered down on the negative aspects of stereotyping. A person who is 35 has gone through a life time of TV, movie and politics that on repeat has talked about the negative of gender roles for women, while the expectations on men has remained fairly unchanged. I do not find it strange at all if an increasing portion of men under this culture has rejected the role put on them.&lt;p&gt;Which goes back to the original question I started with. What motivates them and what do they want to do with their life? If we want to avoid the slow motion tragedy, maybe the way forward is to help them answer those question in the absent of imposed gender roles.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lotsofpulp</author><text>&amp;gt; Is it because they have lower expectations for what their children need to live a &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; life&lt;p&gt;Yes, I think the minimally acceptable quality of life is certainly relative.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; that they just have more hope that things will work out somehow&lt;p&gt;Possibly, if everyone around you is on an upward trajectory, I can see that changing people’s calculus.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; or that they somehow don&amp;#x27;t care about these concerns?&lt;p&gt;I think a big factor is how (financially) independent women are and what kind of access to birth control (especially IUDs) they have.  I suspect many of the women who have or had 3+ children would not have if they had similar options to those in developed countries today.</text></comment>