9 ms·

Where did the Boomer women go?

34 points by jmacd 13y ago

lkrubner 13y ago
This paragraph indicates that more men than women have left the labor force: "The largest single bloc of “missing workers” -- 2.4 million of them -- are of prime working age, 25-54. Another 1.3 million are under the age of 25. The smallest bloc of "missing workers" is aged 55-plus -- 700,000 workers. Of that group, the overwhelming majority are women. In the other two age cohorts, more men than women have left the workforce than were expected." As such, this seems less of a mystery. Why wonder why some women nearing retirement decided to basically retire early, when the economy is bad? Surely it is a much bigger mystery why younger men, in the prime work years, have left the labor force? No doubt the bad economy explains the shrinking labor force, but focusing on older women, rather than younger men, focuses on a small issue and misses a much bigger issue.
- peterjancelis 13y ago
  My guess about the young men is the grey labor market.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- adventured 13y ago
  That large segment of young men is also imploding on an education basis. Nobody seems to care or want to talk about it. It strikes me as a looming disaster, to have such a large and growing segment of the population without either an education or job skills. http://collegestats.org/articles/2013/05/why-men-are-falling-behind-in-higher-ed/ http://collegestats.org/articles/2013/05/why-men-are-falling... http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_14893585 http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_14893585
  - lsc 13y ago
    >Nobody seems to care or want to talk about it. It strikes me as a looming disaster, to have such a large and growing segment of the population without either an education or job skills. Well, I can't speak to the 'education' part, as I don't have one, myself. I think that education is overrated; I mean, If, for instance, a competent party with money came in and bought my company tomorrow? Yeah, I might go get a history degree. It would be a lot of fun. but, really, of little commercial utility. Clearly, some people do learn useful things in school, while others get little (aside from 'personal growth') from the experience. However, the 'job skills' part? that /is/ youth unemployment. You can't get work experience... without a job. And getting a job when unemployment is high and you have no education or experience... is difficult. I was able to get a programming gig at 17, in part, yeah, 'cause I was a smart kid, because my father and stepfather were programmers, and because I had worked through high school as an IT monkey. (My "programmer" title was a little misleading. While I did do some programming, the bulk of my work was systems administration.) But a huge factor was that it was 1997. Standards, quite simply, were lower. (I was shotgunning resumes; The one that landed me my first programming gig was me accidentally sending my resume to the place I currently worked as a call-center tech rather than the local university where I actually intended to apply. Oops.) Now, I was able to turn my work during the dot-com into really good experience that I was able to leverage to get jobs through the crash. However I can tell you right here that if I had started out looking in 2001? I would have been fucked. I mean, yeah, there were a bunch of factors that lead to me becoming employable. But without timing? without the economy demanding a huge number of workers with my skillset? I, as a kid with no education and no experience would very likely have not gotten a chance. But yeah... that's the point. High unemployment rates mean that you have a large and growing segment of the population without job skills... You get job skills from... your job. It's quite difficult to come up with job skills without a job. Hell, even if you have had a job in the past... those skills are perishable. You need to have recent experience. So yeah; the national attention, I think, needs to be switched away from rich people problems, and focused back on the unemployment problem. Well, that or they need to figure out how to run a society with a large number of permanently unemployed folks. Some people think the natural consequence of automation is unemployment. I'm not sure I agree, but either way, Yes, long-term unemployment has long-term consequences.
    - 13y ago
- Fuxy 13y ago
  Labor is quickly becoming obsolete in an age of automation labor is no longer necessary for a great portion of the population however because our economy is based on it this creates big problems the ones finding themselves not needed anymore. We will need to completely restructure the way our economy works to at least provide basic things like a house to live in electricity,etc and money for food to all members of the population without requiring them to work or this situation will reach a tipping point for a revolution. Working members of the population would obviously be able to get more but at least the basic needs for survival are taken care of without the need to work. Having a lot of people with tons of time on their hands may just be a blessing in disguise. Who knows what they come up with if they have so much time to think. I'm certain a large part won't do anything productive with their time but you can count on human competitiveness and their desire of the working class's freedoms to drive the economy. Problem is this basically means that companies would be supporting the entire population most likely forced through taxes and such. This is going to present some interesting problems but it's either this or a revolution destroying everything and replacing it with something that will most likely be less efficient. Could actually ban automation which would definitely be a step backwards. Well it's just a theory but we as a society are approaching something like this.
anovikov 13y ago
I don't buy much into the vision that it's harder for the elder generation to find a job in general. To me it seems that when you're 25, you may be to some degree judged by your perceived potential. When you are 50, you're not, it's only your past achievements that matter. So there must be a much more polarized job market, clear winners and losers.
- RougeFemme 13y ago
  A lot of people hire people like themselves or - to paraphrase previous posts and threads - people they would like to hang out with. And hiring managers are typically younger than 50 and don't want to hang out with someone in their 50's and/or don't want to hire their "parent". Many people see 50-year-olds as "old dogs who can't/don't want to learn new tricks", regardless of past achievements/tricks. And many mid-size to large employers still harbor the illusion that they can hire someone who will stay with the comapny for life, or close to it. Thus, they don't want to "waste time" on someone who will "retire" soon anyway. They want someone to "invest in" and for them, that translates into a younger person. Finally, some people simply don't want to hire someone who knows more/is more experienced than they. Sometimes it's because they fear that person will have an attitude; sometimes it's because they have a need to always be - or perceive themselves to be - the smartest kid on the block.
  - anovikov 13y ago
    I am 34 and 2 of my coders are 42 and 41. They are slow learners and lack initiative, but this is exactly what i want: they do their job well, responsible because they have families to care for, and won't leave any time soon because they are somewhat inflexible/unable to learn fast/avoid changes in general. What else could i wish? I am really happy with them.
    - anovikov 13y ago
      I want to also add that older guys can do a better job managing people, because they are normally less emotional and better communicators (something at which i really suck). So if any of these guys manage to grow out of coders' pants i will find him a suitable use, too.

34 points by jmacd 13y ago

This paragraph indicates that more men than women have left the labor force: "The largest single bloc of “missing workers” -- 2.4 million of them -- are of prime working age, 25-54. Another 1.3 million are under the age of 25. The smallest bloc of "missing workers" is aged 55-plus -- 700,000 workers. Of that group, the overwhelming majority are women. In the other two age cohorts, more men than women have left the workforce than were expected." As such, this seems less of a mystery. Why wonder why some women nearing retirement decided to basically retire early, when the economy is bad? Surely it is a much bigger mystery why younger men, in the prime work years, have left the labor force? No doubt the bad economy explains the shrinking labor force, but focusing on older women, rather than younger men, focuses on a small issue and misses a much bigger issue.

peterjancelis 13y ago
My guess about the young men is the grey labor market.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
adventured 13y ago
That large segment of young men is also imploding on an education basis. Nobody seems to care or want to talk about it. It strikes me as a looming disaster, to have such a large and growing segment of the population without either an education or job skills. http://collegestats.org/articles/2013/05/why-men-are-falling-behind-in-higher-ed/ http://collegestats.org/articles/2013/05/why-men-are-falling... http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_14893585 http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_14893585
- lsc 13y ago
  >Nobody seems to care or want to talk about it. It strikes me as a looming disaster, to have such a large and growing segment of the population without either an education or job skills. Well, I can't speak to the 'education' part, as I don't have one, myself. I think that education is overrated; I mean, If, for instance, a competent party with money came in and bought my company tomorrow? Yeah, I might go get a history degree. It would be a lot of fun. but, really, of little commercial utility. Clearly, some people do learn useful things in school, while others get little (aside from 'personal growth') from the experience. However, the 'job skills' part? that /is/ youth unemployment. You can't get work experience... without a job. And getting a job when unemployment is high and you have no education or experience... is difficult. I was able to get a programming gig at 17, in part, yeah, 'cause I was a smart kid, because my father and stepfather were programmers, and because I had worked through high school as an IT monkey. (My "programmer" title was a little misleading. While I did do some programming, the bulk of my work was systems administration.) But a huge factor was that it was 1997. Standards, quite simply, were lower. (I was shotgunning resumes; The one that landed me my first programming gig was me accidentally sending my resume to the place I currently worked as a call-center tech rather than the local university where I actually intended to apply. Oops.) Now, I was able to turn my work during the dot-com into really good experience that I was able to leverage to get jobs through the crash. However I can tell you right here that if I had started out looking in 2001? I would have been fucked. I mean, yeah, there were a bunch of factors that lead to me becoming employable. But without timing? without the economy demanding a huge number of workers with my skillset? I, as a kid with no education and no experience would very likely have not gotten a chance. But yeah... that's the point. High unemployment rates mean that you have a large and growing segment of the population without job skills... You get job skills from... your job. It's quite difficult to come up with job skills without a job. Hell, even if you have had a job in the past... those skills are perishable. You need to have recent experience. So yeah; the national attention, I think, needs to be switched away from rich people problems, and focused back on the unemployment problem. Well, that or they need to figure out how to run a society with a large number of permanently unemployed folks. Some people think the natural consequence of automation is unemployment. I'm not sure I agree, but either way, Yes, long-term unemployment has long-term consequences.
  - 13y ago
Fuxy 13y ago
Labor is quickly becoming obsolete in an age of automation labor is no longer necessary for a great portion of the population however because our economy is based on it this creates big problems the ones finding themselves not needed anymore. We will need to completely restructure the way our economy works to at least provide basic things like a house to live in electricity,etc and money for food to all members of the population without requiring them to work or this situation will reach a tipping point for a revolution. Working members of the population would obviously be able to get more but at least the basic needs for survival are taken care of without the need to work. Having a lot of people with tons of time on their hands may just be a blessing in disguise. Who knows what they come up with if they have so much time to think. I'm certain a large part won't do anything productive with their time but you can count on human competitiveness and their desire of the working class's freedoms to drive the economy. Problem is this basically means that companies would be supporting the entire population most likely forced through taxes and such. This is going to present some interesting problems but it's either this or a revolution destroying everything and replacing it with something that will most likely be less efficient. Could actually ban automation which would definitely be a step backwards. Well it's just a theory but we as a society are approaching something like this.

anovikov 13y ago

I don't buy much into the vision that it's harder for the elder generation to find a job in general. To me it seems that when you're 25, you may be to some degree judged by your perceived potential. When you are 50, you're not, it's only your past achievements that matter. So there must be a much more polarized job market, clear winners and losers.

RougeFemme 13y ago
A lot of people hire people like themselves or - to paraphrase previous posts and threads - people they would like to hang out with. And hiring managers are typically younger than 50 and don't want to hang out with someone in their 50's and/or don't want to hire their "parent". Many people see 50-year-olds as "old dogs who can't/don't want to learn new tricks", regardless of past achievements/tricks. And many mid-size to large employers still harbor the illusion that they can hire someone who will stay with the comapny for life, or close to it. Thus, they don't want to "waste time" on someone who will "retire" soon anyway. They want someone to "invest in" and for them, that translates into a younger person. Finally, some people simply don't want to hire someone who knows more/is more experienced than they. Sometimes it's because they fear that person will have an attitude; sometimes it's because they have a need to always be - or perceive themselves to be - the smartest kid on the block.
- anovikov 13y ago
  I am 34 and 2 of my coders are 42 and 41. They are slow learners and lack initiative, but this is exactly what i want: they do their job well, responsible because they have families to care for, and won't leave any time soon because they are somewhat inflexible/unable to learn fast/avoid changes in general. What else could i wish? I am really happy with them.
  - anovikov 13y ago
    I want to also add that older guys can do a better job managing people, because they are normally less emotional and better communicators (something at which i really suck). So if any of these guys manage to grow out of coders' pants i will find him a suitable use, too.