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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!
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.
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.
That was the goal in its entirety.
Admitting that there are reasons other than "they're lazy ingrates" would be to admit that there is a problem which cannot be blamed on the victims; one that needs significant alterations to the current economic model in order to solve.
Those same people shipping their entire programming force or engineering work to a middle-eastern call-center want to keep pocketing as long as they can, collapsing middle-class (ideally) be damned.
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.
This exactly. Corporations have been so busy chasing profits that they've forgotten about who makes those profitable products. When you stop caring about your workforce, they stop caring about you.
Just in my ~15 years of career I've started with 15 days/year of holiday (10 federal + 5 discretionary) with 401k (with up to 8% matching) AND pension plans. Now its 10 days/year of holidays and 401k with 4% matching, if you're lucky. No pensions, less matching of 401k, less vacation (overall), an arguably a higher expectation of hours put in.
Pay hasn't increased substantially, my starting salary post-B.S. was ~$50k, and it's now somewhere around $53k some 12 years later. When I first started, I knew who the CEO was and they knew who I was (or at least who my boss was). Even more, I had shaken their hand and had a chance to talk to them in person. Now? They're just some guy in that has an aide or intern send an email out every few months telling us how awesome he is.
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.
As a Brit, I think that is insane, I have 5.6 weeks of legally mandated paid leave per year, that is the minimum they are allowed to get away with. My old job gave me 32 days per year, Americans are all bonkers for putting up with the way companies treat you.