The Lost Generation…this is a story that merits tracking…
Some researchers call them “disconnected,” young people who are neither in school nor the workforce. Their numbers appear to be growing, both in this country and abroad, and researchers estimate their number include twice as many males as females. Here’s the Guardian’s summary of recent research in England.
Tags: disconnected
September 12th, 2009 at 8:41 am
This is a problem, but I think it is only a coincidence that it has to do with the young. Ask any 50 year old who loses their job and finds it very hard to get another one because they are too old. I think the real problem is simple to explain but insoluble. Everyone is now in the work force but there simply isn’t enough to be done to keep everyone employed. And society puts the onus on the person to get employed rather than on the employment system to create enough jobs for everyone. So what many employment systems are really about is making people more competitive as potential employees vis a vis their peers. Think of it. If boys were doing as well as girls, girls wouldn’t have the academic advantages they now enjoy, not because they wouldn’t be trying as hard but simply because the competition would be doing better. This is why we tell boys in the ghetto not to strive to be an NBA star. It could happen but, even with their best efforts, the competition is huge. But becoming, say, an engineer, is completely within one’s own level of effort. It is not dependent on the competition messing up. And it could be worse and it may become worse. People need to do something with their lives but we have taken one of the old full time occupations and made it a four letter word. That occupation is full time housewife and mother. Maybe we can evolve to househusbands and fathers considering the way that boys and now many men are crashing and burning. But that is not likely. Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Player Piano” is an interesting fictional look at this whole problem.