These articles drive me nuts. Every year they say the same thing. 20 year olds feel this, 30 something experience that.<p>What they don't explain is that there are fundamental shifts happening with regards to work, age, education, income, etc.<p>Those changing statistics are everywhere. People are having children later, people are having more jobs throughout their lifetime. Tenured jobs are being eliminated.<p>So for me, the now is so very different from what it was that I was moving towards. Most all my jobs have been contract based / project based / entrepreneurial and start up based. My peers who have excelled have done so in the civil service and in the creative industries, but not in more traditional areas such as finance, business, law and medicine. Why? Because there is a boat load of dead wood up ahead of them. What used to be tiny steps professionally for people in their twenties are coming to people later and later in life.<p>Work is changing. Work expectations are changing.<p>But here's the thing, it's always been changing. It changed during the Wars, when millions of people died. It changed in the post-war period. And it's been changing ever since.<p>Work is bad in your 30s for the reasons that this article outlines, but for many it's worse now than it has been for several generations. But it's clearly better than it was 100 years ago.<p>All I ask is that culturally we have those expectations in line with what it actually happening. For many people, highly trained, highly skilled, and highly educated, it's a tougher row than it has been for a while. Sure there are winners, but the bread and butter, working and middle class jobs have been crushed.<p>And I believe it's going to get harder and harder. For this I hope that our kids don't have to read this articles about how things are for people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. Because for one thing, it's going to be so very different.<p>I know people who say to their kids that they've got it easy. I'm telling the kids that I know that they've got it hard. We are over the high point in terms of employment and per capita income. And if we don't make some radical adjustments to our economic distribution policies, it's going to get worse.<p>Besides, isn't 40 the new 30. (Or was that 50?)<p>ps. I'm currently looking for better work opportunities myself and I'm in my 40s.