I'm one of these missing men. I'm currently 35, and have been working as a software engineer since I was 19. Two years ago, I started experiencing excruciating, unrelenting low back pain that eventually required me to leave my job and go on long term disability.<p>I loved my job. I worked at MongoDB in Palo Alto for 3 years, contributing to the core database (C++) and designed a performance testing platform (among other things). It was a true pleasure to have worked with some extraordinarily brilliant people throughout my career. I biked ~5 miles to work from the house I shared with my partner in Atherton. Life was perfect.<p>I now live with my parents in Florida, and have symptoms that have progressed to what could be MS (I'm undergoing a complete work up at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL).<p>Life sucks. I'm depressed, but who wouldn't be? I also take prescription pain medicine, which helps me get out of bed and shed some of the 105lbs I've gained since this started. Being 6'2" and 285lbs is depressing in it's own right.<p>That said, I want to stress two things:<p>1. Opioids are daemonized by the media, but there is no better option (aside from suicide). The implied correlation with pain medication in this article seems to reinforce the stigma I've been facing; that somehow I'm lazy, weak or an addict. But all I can offer is my word.<p>Like most people who enjoy software engineering, I gained immense gratification from solving difficult problems, learning new things, and completing a piece of software I'm proud of. Opioids don't replace that feeling (for me anyway). Nothing does. But the lesions on my brain make writing software effectively impossible.<p>2. Debilitating conditions predicate losing a job and starting pain medication. Maybe some people are just lazy and hate their jobs, but please don't punish me (and others like me) for it. Even if they're in the majority, please don't punish me. I suffer enough.
I'm not even american, I'm french, 31, I have skills in programming (C++, php, python, and some math), did not obtain my degree, and I have never worked more than a month during all my life. I currently have the disability status, and I will soon train to be an army reservist. I regularly see a psychiatrist for therapy and took anti depressant for 4 years. The inactivity and the feeling of exclusion is soul-killing (Of course there are people in worse situations than mine).<p>Every month I check a box online to certify I am actively looking for a job, but honestly I am not. How on earth do you want people like me begging for a job? It makes no sense. The worst thing is how society treats you and blames you for "laziness", yet those people are increasing but it seems nobody wants to hear it.<p>In some meeting with other people with disabilities, I suggested that there should be companies whose job is to match candidates with companies directly, so that candidates do not have to move sky and earth to find a job. I think it's not even a problem of investment and risk taking, it's just that there is nothing to build or to make, except software and robots, which require education, which is always money-constrained, unsurprisingly. Either that or people don't want to work anymore, and it's fine, because work is less and less necessary.<p>What kills me even more is the whole "get motivated" movement. I know I'm ranting but to me, society looks like a giant treading mill. Happiness and the slow, intelligent life have been forgotten in favor of a society of endless work and jobs. Contributing to the labor force has become a religion. The simple idea of idleness and staying at home to paint or draw seems to drive people crazy. It should not.
In programming and academia you only see the most gifted of society, and even many of those seem to struggle. I can barely imagine what it would be like to be in the less gifted half of the population. I wonder if such men have any chance to build a life respected, or even just work enough to found a family. They seem to have fewer options each year, to find satisfying roles in life.<p>They seem to receive even less understanding or sympathy.
Any research on association of joblessness with internet addiction? I know China has entire state-sponsored treatment programs for internet/video game addiction; they think it is a real problem. I think if a person is consuming 8-9 hours of electronic media per day (which is around average), particularly internet or video games, then their motivation/capacity to interface with the real world is severely damaged. In many ways reality is not as rewarding/stimulating as the internet, but is also more difficult and risky. Just take the case of mating: I can enjoy simulated physical intimacy with literally thousands of physically attractive women with 0 risk of rejection and 0 effort, or I can take on the risk of painful rejection and enormous effort of achieving "social status" and being "charismatic" in order to attract an "actual" woman with whom I get to have "actual" sex, which at the end of the day is just not as good as fake sex with 100s of different electronic women. And really, if I have no need to find a real woman, what need do I have to find a job? Electronic stimulation is severely fucking up the reward/motivation functioning of the human brain, at least for some people, in the same way alcohol is a huge problem for some people.<p>I think the other factor is simply technological productivity. A handful of software engineers can run e.g. Facebook, a social networking site for billions of people. A handful of farmers can produce food for billions of people. Every job opening receives 100s to 1000s of resumes because the world's productivity to consumption of human labor ratio increases every day. If you're not like a top .01% skill level person, you're really not needed. Your brain has been obsoleted.
What I'll write might sound stupid to some but well...<p>There needs to be a re-configuration of the global economy and its system.<p>People like me late 20's and younger might be feeling that they have no future. At least I do. I am working full-time and thats fine. That only pays my day to day expenses, coming the end of the month am always out of money waiting for the next paycheck.
Me buying my own house? That sounds like some sort of sorcery to me...<p>Unfortunately prices went up, on houses etc and nowadays you got Tech involved in anything you do. You have to have a smartphone, and your wife wants the smartphone with the bitten apple no matter if it will cost half a months salary. Your kids want an Ipad or some sort of tablet. Your household needs a TV with netflix, amazon and whatever so you don't get bored. Add all those small things around and the era where everyone is obsessed with "BRANDS", yes let me buy a GANT sweater cause it going to make me so cool, while I could have bought a sweater much much cheaper of the same quality.<p>Unfortunately that makes you think that ok... live today and let tomorrow be.<p>Also another thing that I see around a lot is the use of Drugs and Weed especially. Several people I know or most I'd say they make daily use of Weed. Thats definitely affecting their mind and tbh they've reached the level of obsession with it where they really don't need anything else to live off.<p>There is literally no goal set for me. Will I get a pension when I get older? WHO KNOWS? Will I ever get off working even when I reach a very old age? Who knows, most likely i'll be working for the rest of my life...
Will I be able to afford a house and a normal way of life? Probably in the next 20 years, thats too late but its the truth I'll be around 50's when I'll be owning a house. Not an expensive house, a house that prolly when I sell it won't even cover me for 5 years of living without a job. Thats the sad situation that I and all youngsters are in, let alone people in the US or even Europe with Student loans, I don't even wanna think of them and what kind of future can they have.<p>P.S I am referring to an example of what the average person around me thinks of. Don't call me self-entitled that's harsh and you don't know me.
It probably doesn't help that some companies, such as Amazon, like to treat their unskilled labourers as basically disposable. It's a lot more profitable to set performance requirements that are impossible to meet without seriously injuring yourself, then replace all the temp workers regularly with fresh meat, than to have decent working conditions.
Comparing those numbers with Europe, whose safety net doesn't usually require people to pretend being disabled, would have been enlightening. A missed opportunity.
After watching the documentary "13th" on Netflix recently, I wondered about how the US prison population affected this. Something like 1 out of 100 people in the US are in prison, which must be close to 2 out of 100 men. And another chunk of people who's function in society is to monitor those in jail. Plus the difficulties of getting a job as a felon. Seemed like all put together must have a serious impact on productivity.
I think part of the problem is that jobs are becoming more and more high skill based, requiring many years of university level education. The low skilled jobs are replaced with high skilled ones. The problem is our education systems are falling behind. Education needs to be readily accessible and inexpensive for both initial schooling and those who need/want to re-skill. The universities should also have employment programs which help workers new to their field find and obtain jobs so they can gain experience.<p>With the economy the way it is (slower growth, wage stagnation etc), employers are unwilling to take the potential risk with low skilled workers (who have no degree) and there are plenty of new workers who just finished their degree which employers will prefer to employ. I suspect there would be enough jobs, if there were enough high skilled workers and a better economy. I think the problem is there is a shortage of high skilled experienced workers and an oversupply of lower skilled workers.<p>As some anecdotal evidence, when I search for software engineering / developer jobs in my country, I see a lot of high skilled jobs available, requiring moderate to significant levels of experience and/or education. However, there are much fewer junior/graduate/basic developer jobs available.<p>To become a high skilled worker, you generally have to start in the low skilled jobs, or get a PhD. If its hard to get a lower skilled/entry level job due to low demand, the rate higher skilled worker are produced is restricted. So its a catch 22.
I don't dispute the numbers in the article and can't speak to the tragedy of opioid addiction, but whenever I see something like this I am reminded of a friend of mine who never had a job, and never looked, from ages 18-30. He came from an upper-middle class family and his parents basically supported him all those years and he was fine with that. He knows he's lazy and embraced that as long as he could. To outsiders who'd ask why he doesn't have a job, he'd blame it on things like a crummy job market, chronic joint pain, or that he had hearing issues that prevented him from working effectively. He never went on disability though. Finally when his parents' fortune ran low, he had to suck it up and start working and he's doing fine now.<p>So, I always wonder when reading this stuff, what portion of the sample just has "affluenza" and is blaming it on something else to hide the truth (which, by the way, I don't have a problem with - if someone wants to embrace being lazy and has the means to do it, then go ahead).
Not pointed out in the article, but perhaps in the study(?) - the United States has been engaged in an active war for the past 15 years that likely contributes to an increased number of those taking painkillers for injuries or having some sort of psychological disorder. In my mind I liken it to shellshock and after-effects felt in societies post WWI / WWII. I don't have specifics on the number of wounded / in treatment but it is likely not an insignificant contributor to such an increase.
> 31 percent of those receiving benefits have mental disorders<p>This has got to be a major contributing factor. Add in those with undiagnosed psych problems, and I'm sure it would stand out even more. [Of course, maybe they would be balanced out by the 'fakers'-- but that is almost equally alarming, and itself suggests all kinds of deeper problems.]<p>Both reducing the stigma of and increasing access to mental health care are hugely important right now. Most people with such issues are perfectly capable of being productive employees-- but not if they are marginalized through terrible hiring processes, workplace 'social politics' and inflexible, unsympathetic (or simply incompetent) management. A robust jobs program could certainly help.
Recommended reading: In Praise of Idleness By Bertrand Russell<p><a href="http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html</a>
Statistics foR women for reference : <a href="https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/Laborforce_par_rate_edu_att_sex_2015_txt.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/Laborforce_par_rate_edu_att_sex...</a><p>Women labor force participation rate in india 24% <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/opinion/why-arent-indias-women-working.html" rel="nofollow">http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/opinion/why-arent-india...</a>
Video games could be playing a part:
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/23/why-amazing-video-games-could-be-causing-a-big-problem-for-america/" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/23/why-a...</a>
Some more thoughts on that worrying trend by larry summers (unfortunately behind firewall but readable here: <a href="https://www.google.com/?q=Men+not+at+work:+Lawrence+Summers+on+America%E2%80%99s+hidden+unemployment" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/?q=Men+not+at+work:+Lawrence+Summers+...</a>)
> ... were not in the labor force, which means that they were not employed and were not seeking a job.<p>Does entrepreneurs constitute labor force? If so, then "labor force" and "not employed and not seeking a job" are not exactly the same
Seems dubious. 50% of American adults have had chronic pain for the last 20 years, but unemployment among men has gone up dramatically in that time.<p>That said, we should ban companies like Red Bull from sponsoring extreme sports. Every time you see one of those People Are Awesome videos in your Facebook feed there is an entire cohort of permanently disabled kids that went into the making. There is a great documentary called Crash Reel about this.