Something I’ve been thinking about lately.
“One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married.”
That hits close to home, but also with reading that article they didn’t take in account for the 20-something year olds that actually have a degree and can’t find a job because they’re now competing with 40+ year olds whose job was terminated from the economic fall out and no longer have the luxury of a set salary with a retirement plan. Adults who are much older are now taking the summer jobs that we, the “20-something” would normally go after. Even down to the pizza delivery guy.
We’re not incredibly ecstatic about moving in with our parents and not reaching the extent of adulthood, but its kind of hard to become a homeowner, support a family, and raise a child (since thats the criteria of being an adult) when you’re fighting with more people over a mediocre 30,000 a year job even with a degree.
I can’t afford to be an adult.
Oh, jesus. fuck that article. This is a larger problem about the cost of education, and the lack of jobs that would fund paying off that education. It’s economics, not people being immature or lazy.
This pains me. They are taking so long to grow up because they’ve been institutionalized to keep them in the consumer market but out of the job market. It’s an extension of the institutionalization of high schooling that began in the mid-late 1800s to continue adolescence (and for the record, I agree with it). But This generation is raised to believe that they must go to college to get even the most basic job, which after years of school they discover isn’t actually available so they become a barista. The current system is killing the trades and artisan classes (except in small pockets) in the US and retarding the maturity of a whole generation. More than that, the economic expectations their parents raised them with combined with their lack of real world experience and fiscal planning does not bode well for the nation’s economic recovery
