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Japan is a preview of what's coming to many developed western economies. I found this paragraph from the article disturbingly similar to the situation here in

Japan is a preview of what's coming to many developed western economies. I found this paragraph from the article disturbingly similar to the situation here in the states: "The rise in those shunning marriage, experts say, is due not only to more diverse life-styles but to an increase in low-paying, unstable jobs. Part-timers, temps or contract workers now account for nearly 40 percent of the workforce compared to about 20 percent in the 1980s." I imagine this will only be accelerated with the rise of AI and increasing job automation. Already, we're seeing the average age when people get married and have kids rise with each generation. I think alot of this is due to job instability, depressed wages, rise of the 1099 worker with no benefits, etc. Reminds me of the situation in China, where unless you have a house and a car, you're basically persona-non-grata. So if you're a young person in the US, you're doubly screwed. All your friends and potential dating partners are concentrated in the big cities, but those are also the places with the highest costs of living, highest costs to own a home, to raise a kid, etc. If you're mid 20s / early 30s person in San Fran and you're not working for GOOG/FB/APPL etc. you're basically screwed.

majormajor 9y ago
This is a rather narrow perspective. Lotta cheap big cities with lots of jobs if you're not on the coast. The people really screwed aren't the ones in Dallas, Atlanta, or Charlotte - where an average home is something like 200K and jobs can be found - they're the ones in dying small towns that have been left by businesses, or in the expensive coastal cities where they're caught up in the housing madness but without the high income or established wealth driving those prices. They'd be better off moving to, say, the Dallas area, but that's not an option for everyone. And "you have to pick up your life and say goodbye to everyone you know because the market says so" is hardly an outcome we should be promoting. (I'd also make the argument that we'd be better off getting more diverse perspectives into those cities, vs our current CA/NY/OR/WA-vs-the-rest-of-the-US silos, but that's another discussion, and a perfect example of "if you really believed that so deeply, why don't you move yourself?")
- zzzzzzzza 9y ago
  "you have to pick up your life and say goodbye to everyone you know because the market says so" is hardly an outcome we should be promoting. Disagree. If your town's way of life is based on for example, coal mining, then good riddance. Another example, perhaps the town is based on agriculture but drones cut the need for labor in half, some people will have to either learn some skill that can be applied remotely or move elsewhere to efficiently allocate their labor. The government (imo) shouldn't be "promoting" any lifestyle. Let the markets operate.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >The government (imo) shouldn't be "promoting" any lifestyle. Let the markets operate. If the markets could make do by 10% of the population, they'd screw the rest.
  - surfmike 9y ago
    It's one thing if your community is dying economically. It's a different story if your area is doing great economically, but housing is so restricted that only a narrow subset of people can live there. Especially since government (via zoning) is creating the artificial scarcity in the first place.
    - maherbeg 9y ago
      This is so true. The flip side of "let small towns die" is "let big cities thrive".
      - ZenoArrow 9y ago
        Only if the big cities have enough untapped jobs that let new residents thrive.
        adventured 9y ago
        Cities usually significantly outperform when it comes to unemployment: http://i.imgur.com/lPB3R7m.jpg http://i.imgur.com/lPB3R7m.jpg
iamgopal 9y ago
it may take time of adjustment, but free minimum wage or something similar to that will come. as there are couple of side effect of automation. one, it will reduce the price, so you can still buy same thing for lower money. second, if people do not have job, they do not have money, they can not afford higher price good, so goods price needs to be reduce. ideally, for any consumption of any kind, economy will balance out eventually. ( i.e. sum of all people consuming all of goods, energy or other resource = all goods, energy other resource produce. ) kind of second law of therm. for economics. so because low wage people spending less money = no point of producing tons of automatically manufactured goods for which nobody going to pay. )
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  I'm hopefully that things will eventually work out as you outline, but I'm afraid that an entire generation (at least) will be lost in the transition.
perseusprime11 9y ago
All these articles around jobs downplays the fact that there are significant percentages of people who are highly ambitious and want to make money.
- rndmize 9y ago
  I don't think it's downplayed so much as implied - when a country has an increasing number of disenfranchised people but still has economic growth that outpaces their population growth, the wealth is probably accruing somewhere else (ie, those ambitious people.) I also feel like that's exactly what is happening in the US. I write software in the Bay Area (surprise) and its striking to me that I make more money that several married couples I know where both partners work full time. The couples that do make more than me all have at least one person in tech or medical. Generally, these people are also more ambitious, but not to the degree the difference in income would imply.
  - perseusprime11 9y ago
    Aren't your now questioning capitalism?
    - ionised 9y ago
      Why, is that supposed to be heresy or something?
pc86 9y ago
> All your friends and potential dating partners are concentrated in the big cities This is comparable to saying "all the young people live in cities" which is demonstrably false.
Markoff 9y ago
> Reminds me of the situation in China, where unless you have a house and a car, you're basically persona-non-grata. That's vast exageration and it's sad people believe this common myth about China, lived there plenty of years and yes, it's common phenomenom, but so it's marriage out of love. I knew plenty of mixed couples and also plenty of local couples who contradict this claim. Pretty much none of my foreign coworkers had house or car and married if they wanted (yes, some traditional parents were not happy about it, but it was usually more about being foreigner than wealth) and so did Chinese couples doing naked wedding. I really recommend to you explore term "naked wedding" (it means without house/car) which is more and more common since properties in China are more expensive every week. I find personally this selfpity about how you are screwed if you are not making tons of moeny and havin great car and house a lame excuse, as if all girls living would be gold diggers, but I guess in this website where is maybe 98% readers men it sounds plausible in this echo chamber.
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  > That's vast exageration and it's sad people believe this common myth about China, lived there plenty of years and yes, it's common phenomenom, but so it's marriage out of love. I'm quite familiar with China, the culture, people, and the situation on the ground. I stand by my claim. It's a serious problem, one that the government itself is addressing because they believe will lead to social instability. It's not a myth at all. It's a serious problem - it might be improving with youth in urban centers - because so many have no chance of realistically owning a house/car - but the overall mentality still very much prevails. > Pretty much none of my foreign coworkers had house or car and married if they wanted (yes, some traditional parents were not happy about it, but it was usually more about being foreigner than wealth) and so did Chinese couples doing naked wedding. Yes, foreigners don't need to have a house or car to get married to a local. They have other assets - like foreign citizenship - that make up the difference. No offense, but you live in rarefied air in China. I don't think you really know about the situation facing the average Chinese person. > I find personally this selfpity about how you are screwed if you are not making tons of moeny and havin great car and house a lame excuse, as if all girls living would be gold diggers, but I guess in this website where is maybe 98% readers men it sounds plausible in this echo chamber. In China it's not about the gold-digging. It's just facing the realities of life on the ground: competitive society + single child families means you have to take care of your parents, so of course girls seek stability. This is natural and you find various elements of this in the west too.

majormajor 9y ago

This is a rather narrow perspective. Lotta cheap big cities with lots of jobs if you're not on the coast. The people really screwed aren't the ones in Dallas, Atlanta, or Charlotte - where an average home is something like 200K and jobs can be found - they're the ones in dying small towns that have been left by businesses, or in the expensive coastal cities where they're caught up in the housing madness but without the high income or established wealth driving those prices. They'd be better off moving to, say, the Dallas area, but that's not an option for everyone. And "you have to pick up your life and say goodbye to everyone you know because the market says so" is hardly an outcome we should be promoting. (I'd also make the argument that we'd be better off getting more diverse perspectives into those cities, vs our current CA/NY/OR/WA-vs-the-rest-of-the-US silos, but that's another discussion, and a perfect example of "if you really believed that so deeply, why don't you move yourself?")

zzzzzzzza 9y ago
"you have to pick up your life and say goodbye to everyone you know because the market says so" is hardly an outcome we should be promoting. Disagree. If your town's way of life is based on for example, coal mining, then good riddance. Another example, perhaps the town is based on agriculture but drones cut the need for labor in half, some people will have to either learn some skill that can be applied remotely or move elsewhere to efficiently allocate their labor. The government (imo) shouldn't be "promoting" any lifestyle. Let the markets operate.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >The government (imo) shouldn't be "promoting" any lifestyle. Let the markets operate. If the markets could make do by 10% of the population, they'd screw the rest.
- surfmike 9y ago
  It's one thing if your community is dying economically. It's a different story if your area is doing great economically, but housing is so restricted that only a narrow subset of people can live there. Especially since government (via zoning) is creating the artificial scarcity in the first place.
  - maherbeg 9y ago
    This is so true. The flip side of "let small towns die" is "let big cities thrive".
    - ZenoArrow 9y ago
      Only if the big cities have enough untapped jobs that let new residents thrive.
      - adventured 9y ago
        Cities usually significantly outperform when it comes to unemployment: http://i.imgur.com/lPB3R7m.jpg http://i.imgur.com/lPB3R7m.jpg

iamgopal 9y ago

it may take time of adjustment, but free minimum wage or something similar to that will come. as there are couple of side effect of automation. one, it will reduce the price, so you can still buy same thing for lower money. second, if people do not have job, they do not have money, they can not afford higher price good, so goods price needs to be reduce. ideally, for any consumption of any kind, economy will balance out eventually. ( i.e. sum of all people consuming all of goods, energy or other resource = all goods, energy other resource produce. ) kind of second law of therm. for economics. so because low wage people spending less money = no point of producing tons of automatically manufactured goods for which nobody going to pay. )

ithinkinstereo 9y ago
I'm hopefully that things will eventually work out as you outline, but I'm afraid that an entire generation (at least) will be lost in the transition.

perseusprime11 9y ago

All these articles around jobs downplays the fact that there are significant percentages of people who are highly ambitious and want to make money.

rndmize 9y ago
I don't think it's downplayed so much as implied - when a country has an increasing number of disenfranchised people but still has economic growth that outpaces their population growth, the wealth is probably accruing somewhere else (ie, those ambitious people.) I also feel like that's exactly what is happening in the US. I write software in the Bay Area (surprise) and its striking to me that I make more money that several married couples I know where both partners work full time. The couples that do make more than me all have at least one person in tech or medical. Generally, these people are also more ambitious, but not to the degree the difference in income would imply.
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  Aren't your now questioning capitalism?
  - ionised 9y ago
    Why, is that supposed to be heresy or something?

pc86 9y ago

> All your friends and potential dating partners are concentrated in the big cities This is comparable to saying "all the young people live in cities" which is demonstrably false.

Markoff 9y ago

> Reminds me of the situation in China, where unless you have a house and a car, you're basically persona-non-grata. That's vast exageration and it's sad people believe this common myth about China, lived there plenty of years and yes, it's common phenomenom, but so it's marriage out of love. I knew plenty of mixed couples and also plenty of local couples who contradict this claim. Pretty much none of my foreign coworkers had house or car and married if they wanted (yes, some traditional parents were not happy about it, but it was usually more about being foreigner than wealth) and so did Chinese couples doing naked wedding. I really recommend to you explore term "naked wedding" (it means without house/car) which is more and more common since properties in China are more expensive every week. I find personally this selfpity about how you are screwed if you are not making tons of moeny and havin great car and house a lame excuse, as if all girls living would be gold diggers, but I guess in this website where is maybe 98% readers men it sounds plausible in this echo chamber.

ithinkinstereo 9y ago
> That's vast exageration and it's sad people believe this common myth about China, lived there plenty of years and yes, it's common phenomenom, but so it's marriage out of love. I'm quite familiar with China, the culture, people, and the situation on the ground. I stand by my claim. It's a serious problem, one that the government itself is addressing because they believe will lead to social instability. It's not a myth at all. It's a serious problem - it might be improving with youth in urban centers - because so many have no chance of realistically owning a house/car - but the overall mentality still very much prevails. > Pretty much none of my foreign coworkers had house or car and married if they wanted (yes, some traditional parents were not happy about it, but it was usually more about being foreigner than wealth) and so did Chinese couples doing naked wedding. Yes, foreigners don't need to have a house or car to get married to a local. They have other assets - like foreign citizenship - that make up the difference. No offense, but you live in rarefied air in China. I don't think you really know about the situation facing the average Chinese person. > I find personally this selfpity about how you are screwed if you are not making tons of moeny and havin great car and house a lame excuse, as if all girls living would be gold diggers, but I guess in this website where is maybe 98% readers men it sounds plausible in this echo chamber. In China it's not about the gold-digging. It's just facing the realities of life on the ground: competitive society + single child families means you have to take care of your parents, so of course girls seek stability. This is natural and you find various elements of this in the west too.