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Is this only a problem for men? And if so why? I can't help but think that an article this short can't be anything more than fluff.

adventured 10y ago
I can think of a few reasons. 1) Women are graduating from college at a higher rate than men. 2) Women are going to college at a higher rate than men. 3) Women have a higher literacy rate than men. 4) Women graduate from high school at a higher rate than men. These trends are likely to continue. I don't see any possible scenario where men are not worse off in 20 years than they are today, while the higher educated women continue upwards. This is likely especially the case given that trends in education are pointing drastically in favor of women. If you examine men-heavy trades such as trucking, they are likely to almost entirely disappear in regards to providing plentiful millions of moderate paying jobs to fairly low skill blue collar workers. Nearly all taxi & Uber type jobs will also disappear, those too are dominated by men. Manufacturing will become even further automated by robotics + AI, those jobs are heavily dominated by men. Even military jobs are likely to be meaningfully reduced by leaps in automation and robotics.
- jdhawk 10y ago
  And the "housewife" skew was probably pretty heavy in the 1970's, where his data starts.
gleenn 10y ago
I think it's hardly a problem just for men, it's probably just the statistic they have been able to easily measure or have data for. And especially given that women have an increasing role over time in the work force, that would confound the numbers a bit if you are trying to measure things more stably over the last few decades.
cjensen 10y ago
I appreciate a brief article like this which flags a serious issue without feeling obligated to explain the cause of the issue. Would the facts have changed if the author had added debatable speculation as to causes? If he had included speculation, would discussion here have focused on the problem, or would it have focused the easier debate about the causes? It's okay to file a bug report without pointing out the design defect that caused the issue.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Is this only a problem for men? Its probably more of a problem for men because the kinds of jobs advancing technology is most likely to eliminate [0] in the near future tend to be male-dominated, especially the jobs that are better quality in the first place. So, men (of particular demographics and skill/education profiles) are going to be losing more quality opportunities that they would otherwise have than women are. Also, IIRC, there are some indications that a variety of social problems (including certain types of crime and violence) tend to increase with the proportion of long-term unemployed men but not so much with unemployed women, so even beyond the degree to which it is a problem for men, the problem men experience because of it may be disproportionately a problem for society as a whole. > I can't help but think that an article this short can't be anything more than fluff. Well, its mostly a call-out to another article of the author's, which is itself a review of a book by a different author. So, yeah, its not exactly intended as much of a full discussion of the issue it points to. [0] "replace with jobs with very different entry requirements" may be more accurate in some cases, but the net effect is generally similar.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
Possibly part of the reason that it could be seen as a problem that affects men more than women is that women are generally employed in more social roles, which tend to not be automated away so quickly, e.g. hair dressers, baristas, teachers, nurses, human resources. Baristas are a very good example of this. The whole coffee making process can be pretty much automated, but isn't because people like to see a person making their coffee.

adventured 10y ago

I can think of a few reasons. 1) Women are graduating from college at a higher rate than men. 2) Women are going to college at a higher rate than men. 3) Women have a higher literacy rate than men. 4) Women graduate from high school at a higher rate than men. These trends are likely to continue. I don't see any possible scenario where men are not worse off in 20 years than they are today, while the higher educated women continue upwards. This is likely especially the case given that trends in education are pointing drastically in favor of women. If you examine men-heavy trades such as trucking, they are likely to almost entirely disappear in regards to providing plentiful millions of moderate paying jobs to fairly low skill blue collar workers. Nearly all taxi & Uber type jobs will also disappear, those too are dominated by men. Manufacturing will become even further automated by robotics + AI, those jobs are heavily dominated by men. Even military jobs are likely to be meaningfully reduced by leaps in automation and robotics.

jdhawk 10y ago
And the "housewife" skew was probably pretty heavy in the 1970's, where his data starts.

gleenn 10y ago

I think it's hardly a problem just for men, it's probably just the statistic they have been able to easily measure or have data for. And especially given that women have an increasing role over time in the work force, that would confound the numbers a bit if you are trying to measure things more stably over the last few decades.

cjensen 10y ago

I appreciate a brief article like this which flags a serious issue without feeling obligated to explain the cause of the issue. Would the facts have changed if the author had added debatable speculation as to causes? If he had included speculation, would discussion here have focused on the problem, or would it have focused the easier debate about the causes? It's okay to file a bug report without pointing out the design defect that caused the issue.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Is this only a problem for men? Its probably more of a problem for men because the kinds of jobs advancing technology is most likely to eliminate [0] in the near future tend to be male-dominated, especially the jobs that are better quality in the first place. So, men (of particular demographics and skill/education profiles) are going to be losing more quality opportunities that they would otherwise have than women are. Also, IIRC, there are some indications that a variety of social problems (including certain types of crime and violence) tend to increase with the proportion of long-term unemployed men but not so much with unemployed women, so even beyond the degree to which it is a problem for men, the problem men experience because of it may be disproportionately a problem for society as a whole. > I can't help but think that an article this short can't be anything more than fluff. Well, its mostly a call-out to another article of the author's, which is itself a review of a book by a different author. So, yeah, its not exactly intended as much of a full discussion of the issue it points to. [0] "replace with jobs with very different entry requirements" may be more accurate in some cases, but the net effect is generally similar.

toomanybeersies 10y ago

Possibly part of the reason that it could be seen as a problem that affects men more than women is that women are generally employed in more social roles, which tend to not be automated away so quickly, e.g. hair dressers, baristas, teachers, nurses, human resources. Baristas are a very good example of this. The whole coffee making process can be pretty much automated, but isn't because people like to see a person making their coffee.