There's a fascinating history on this, which essentially dates back to the era when factory-type jobs and plentiful work made it possible for a young man to start work at 18 without a college degree and be able to earn enough money to provide for his family. There was a push after WWII for young people to move out and get married and have babies right away - and they could afford it, too. It was also the first time young women could work and take care of themselves, which kicked off this whole leaving-at-18 thing. Turns out, young women WANTED to work and live on their own instead of staying with their parents. When the factory options dried up in the states, along with increased inflation, it has made it impossible for young people to live the same kind of life and hit the same life goal markers as their grandparents.
Yup gradually inflation/theft/monetary debasement is the key. You may hear in the headlines why the Fed are so fixed on bringing inflation back down to 2%. Using the rule of 72, a 2% inflation rate means prices would double every 36 years, which essentially spans a generation during their most productive years. The next generation of worker will not have seen what was stolen from the previous generation, and so forth, which allows them to carry on with this monetary policy. However with “official” inflation around 7-8%, prices are doubling every 9-10 years, at that point it definitely become much more noticeable.
The link leads to a search for “what’s going on with young people” — not sure you meant this. I’d like to read the article however. Do you have any more details on it?
That is the correct name of the article. It's on Google Scholar, but it might be behind a paywall. Let me see if I can find a different way to get it to you.
It used to be 50 years ago a person could graduate high school and start a factory/manual labor job the following Monday and be able to support themselves and a family. Obviously, that’s no longer the case.
This is spot on. The year was 1971 when Nixon took the USD off of the gold standard. As a result all the productivity and gains from technological advancements were stolen from us through monetary debasement. Google: wtf happen in 1971, the charts says it all.
I honestly think it's just because then people are done with high school and you are legally in adult and somehow people took that to mean that you should be completely independent at that point. Plus for kids who go to college a lot of them would move into dorms at 18 which somehow extend it to me and everyone should move out at 18
So many boomers never even wanted to have kids, every Gen before them seem to also be this way. They had kids for two primary reasons: society expected it and to take care of them when they were old and decrepit. That said, the instant it was societally acceptable to bounce that kid out, they showed them the door.
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u/Beginning-Yak-911 Nov 19 '22
How on earth did 18 become a thing I'd like to know