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Young Men Are Working Less. Some Economists Think It's Because They're Home Playing Video Games. (nytimes.com)
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.
It couldn't be that it's harder to find full-time jobs or that the full-time jobs keep having fewer and fewer hours (36.5 hours was the average full-time job last I saw.)
But no, we're all at home playing video games. I wish I had gotten that memo!
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.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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, particularly when employers are showing less and less loyalty to their employees than in previous generations. Couple that with the idea that people just can't get ahead, be it because of debt from education, etc, and who's going to bust their hump like Grandpa did for 30 years? When the option to work less, enjoy more leisure time, and defer the costs of living to your credit cards is so appealing, is it any wonder that a trend of working less is emerging? Video games just happen to be the entertainment channel of choice.
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.
Oh my god! No, people are not working because there aren't enough jobs available to them and that is happening because there are no savings in the system, the savings are systematically destroyed by the collectivist activity, by government, by taxation, by regulations, by inflation (money printing, interest rate manipulation by the central banks for the purposes of supporting the power of government).
There is no manufacturing sector, the other sectors are automating and laying off and offshoring, etc., and there are oinly so many lobbyist positions available (and those young people are not fit to be in them anyway).
It's the economy, stupid, it's not the videogames.
You can't handle the truth.
They listened to the greybeards talking about the 50-60 hours weeks they worked when they were young, and now see how the greybeards get kicked to the curb. They smartened up, they know there's no real reward for busting your ass for a company.
They look into the past and see the amount of time people worked.- Back when working a lot afforded you a house, a car, and you could support your family on single income.
Now you work for a fraction of the price, barely make ends meet, while putting in a shit ton of hours.
You can't afford a vacation, you have to rent places that can be questionable, your vehicle is falling the fuck apart.
You can mostly work and give that money to someone else just for the option to live under a shelter, have food and water, clothes, and transportation to work.
Who the fuck wants to work for that reason? Like fuck off.
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.
Companies are happy to give employees more hours.
They are just not willing to give more pay.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
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.
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.
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?
The real truth here is there are plenty of jobs, it's just that young men with no education who were born here feel they shouldn't have to do those jobs. So, there are plenty of others who will take them even if they don't have citizenship. I watch them build houses , build roads, construct buildings, work on power plants, and nearly every construction work is Hispanic. Why do lower income whites feel this is beneath them? Is the work too hard, or are they too lazy? Did they have an expectation of higher incomes because of their parents and don't feel they should put in the work and time? That they should have a higher standard of living just because they were born here?
Don't blame the Bureau of Labor Statistics for your failure to find a job. That's on you.
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.
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 too lucrative, that's why contractors fight over them. It's easy when the bureaucrats know they're spending other people's money.
I will agree on the elders, but as you get older, you believe that all of your life experience trumps people who haven't lived their lives yet. Pity that almost all your experience is in the past and not exactly current to the last 5 years, but hey, you're an elder and elders should be respected for that reason alone, right?
While the young think they know everything. Ignorance is bliss. Remember, the old were once young, too. Many of today's problems are caused by lack of wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience.
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.
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.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.