What causes unemployment?

[garbon]

  With all due respect, AR, this post is full of life expectancy math fail, for a couple of reasons.

I realize that isn't all that accurate, but no one on this forum is going to sort through life expectancy and other tables to perform a rigorous analysis. It illustrates the point I was trying to make.

It did prompt me to pull up some of the info and think hmm, he's talking out of his ass with that example.

[DGuller]

  With all due respect, AR, this post is full of life expectancy math fail, for a couple of reasons.

I realize that isn't all that accurate, but no one on this forum is going to sort through life expectancy and other tables to perform a rigorous analysis. It illustrates the point I was trying to make.

Ok, granted with those caveats, although this is bound to be a very inaccurate approximation.  You're still missing another huge piece, though:  the drastically increased labor participation rate for women.

[garbon]

  With all due respect, AR, this post is full of life expectancy math fail, for a couple of reasons.

I realize that isn't all that accurate, but no one on this forum is going to sort through life expectancy and other tables to perform a rigorous analysis. It illustrates the point I was trying to make.

Ok, granted with those caveats, although this is bound to be a very inaccurate approximation.  You're still missing another huge piece, though:  the drastically increased labor participation rate for women.

Oh I thought about that too.

I should add though that feminist in me didn't really know which direction to take that in.  Women's work and all that.

[alfred russel]

  With all due respect, AR, this post is full of life expectancy math fail, for a couple of reasons.

I realize that isn't all that accurate, but no one on this forum is going to sort through life expectancy and other tables to perform a rigorous analysis. It illustrates the point I was trying to make.

Ok, granted with those caveats, although this is bound to be a very inaccurate approximation.  You're still missing another huge piece, though:  the drastically increased labor participation rate for women.

I don't necessarily agree that increased labor participation for women means decreased leisure.

[HVC]

  With all due respect, AR, this post is full of life expectancy math fail, for a couple of reasons.

I realize that isn't all that accurate, but no one on this forum is going to sort through life expectancy and other tables to perform a rigorous analysis. It illustrates the point I was trying to make.

Ok, granted with those caveats, although this is bound to be a very inaccurate approximation.  You're still missing another huge piece, though:  the drastically increased labor participation rate for women.

I don't necessarily agree that increased labor participation for women means decreased leisure.

indeed. Office "leisure" has surely increased

[alfred russel]

  With all due respect, AR, this post is full of life expectancy math fail, for a couple of reasons.

I realize that isn't all that accurate, but no one on this forum is going to sort through life expectancy and other tables to perform a rigorous analysis. It illustrates the point I was trying to make.

It did prompt me to pull up some of the info and think hmm, he's talking out of his ass with that example.

I didn't fact check the numbers, but the trend is there. On average we spend more time in retirement, and more time obtaining an education.

[DGuller]

Anyway, you may be right in comparison of 1930 vs. 2010, but I don't think that 1930 is regarded by anyone as the peak of leisure.  I would guess that 1950ies or 1960ies are more stereotypically leisurely decades.

[alfred russel]

Anyway, you may be right in comparison of 1930 vs. 2010, but I don't think that 1930 is regarded by anyone as the peak of leisure.  I would guess that 1950ies or 1960ies are more stereotypically leisurely decades.

Does that change anything though?

[DGuller]

Anyway, you may be right in comparison of 1930 vs. 2010, but I don't think that 1930 is regarded by anyone as the peak of leisure.  I would guess that 1950ies or 1960ies are more stereotypically leisurely decades.

Does that change anything though?

I don't know, but it might.  At least the stereotype of 1950ies is that a man went to work for 8 hours, while his wife stayed home.  That would kind of compare well to both working 10 hours a day, from a leisure perspective.

[Iormlund]

In theory at some point satiation of needs can be reached, but historically what seemed like reasonable predictions of future satiation have always failed to pan out.  Human beings appear to be endlessly creative in creating new wants and needs, notwithstanding the tut-tutting of the Frankfurt School.   As long as that continues, and I can think of no reason it won't, your futurist scenario won't come to be.

You can see the point of satiation now. It depends a lot on individuals. There are millions on welfare or living from their parents or trust funds that do not to work.
And there are others who continue working when they don't really need to. For example, I know a doctor, very good at what he does, who makes obscene amounts of money -- yet works pretty much all day. He just loves his job.

As for the creation of new wants and needs, that doesn't necessarily imply a sizable workforce has to be employed in the sufficiently far future. The Steve Jobs of the future would still be there to figure out what people want, as well as his engineers and the like. But the iPod of the future could be assembled, shipped and distributed entirely without human intervention.
Many people think that would free millions of workers to become entrepreneurs, engineers or whatever themselves. I quite frankly doubt even a sizable minority of the population has the required mental abilities (and will) to do such a thing. In my experience creativity is a fairly scarce resource.

[alfred russel]

I don't know, but it might.  At least the stereotype of 1950ies is that a man went to work for 8 hours, while his wife stayed home.  That would kind of compare well to both working 10 hours a day, from a leisure perspective.

Do both work 10 hours now? Sure some do, but I don't think regular 50 hour workweeks are that common. It is hard to generalize without data on this though.

[Ideologue]

In theory at some point satiation of needs can be reached, but historically what seemed like reasonable predictions of future satiation have always failed to pan out.  Human beings appear to be endlessly creative in creating new wants and needs, notwithstanding the tut-tutting of the Frankfurt School.   As long as that continues, and I can think of no reason it won't, your futurist scenario won't come to be.

You can see the point of satiation now. It depends a lot on individuals. There are millions on welfare or living from their parents or trust funds that do not to work.
And there are others who continue working when they don't really need to. For example, I know a doctor, very good at what he does, who makes obscene amounts of money -- yet works pretty much all day. He just loves his job.

As for the creation of new wants and needs, that doesn't necessarily imply a sizable workforce has to be employed in the sufficiently far future. The Steve Jobs of the future would still be there to figure out what people want, as well as his engineers and the like. But the iPod of the future could be assembled, shipped and distributed entirely without human intervention.
Many people think that would free millions of workers to become entrepreneurs, engineers or whatever themselves. I quite frankly doubt even a sizable minority of the population has the required mental abilities (and will) to do such a thing. In my experience creativity is a fairly scarce resource.

Indeed.  That's my take on it.  Humans are not fungible.

[dps]

You're right about retirement (though I'm not sure if your reasons for the changes are right) and about the communications thing, but I'm almost certain that the length of the work day is not increasing, at least in the US.

I didnt give any reasons for it.  I simply told you how the law has adjusted to that reality.

Why are you certain that people in the US are not working extra unpaid time?

I didn't say they weren't.  I said that the length of the workday isn't increasing.  But I haven't seen any evidence that large numbers of people are working extra unpaid time, either.  Now, if you want to count people on salary or straight commission sales as working extra unpaid time, sure, people do that.  But that's always been the case for salaried professionals and for salesmen;  I've seen nothing to indicate that people in those types of jobs work longer hours than they did in the previous generation, and the rules about who can be on salary have changed, so there are lots of jobs that were once filled by salaried employees that have to be filled by hourly workers now.  For example, my mom was on salary as a secretary, and my stepfather worked on salary at a non-commission sales job.  Those positions would be hourly now.  And if you're talking about hourly positions rather than salaried or commissioned positions, then it's quit against the law to have people working "off the clock".  Now, that doesn't mean it doens't happen--I am aware of some cases where it has--but I don't see any reason to believe that it's widespread of that it is becoming more common.

[Caliga]

This being my point - but just like not every law student ends up as a big-time rainmaker (or even a middling regulatory lawyer  ), not every plumbing apprentice ends up owning their own company - I actually have no idea which course, if pursued today, would on average lead to the money.

True, but I think my great-grandfather and his dad did so well because they were intelligent, well-educated (by the standard of the day) men. so they weren't just your average Joe plumbers but were capable of expanding beyond just the physical acts of plumbing into managing workers, money, etc.

I would guess anyone on this board who went into a trade like that could be more than just Joe Plumber or Joe Carpenter, too.

[Caliga]

But they guy who owns a plumbing company also gets to sit in an office ... 

Nope.   Dunno about g-g-grandfather, but my great grandfather worked lots of jobs himself, and when he wasn't onsite he was in his workshop (outbuilding on their property).  I'm not sure what percentage of the time spent in his workship was devoted to working vs. drinking out of sight of his crazy Baptist wife, though.