Census: Recession takes big toll on young adults

Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2011-09-23 01:49

Article here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON (AP) -- Young adults are the recession's lost generation.

In record numbers, they're struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock, if they're becoming parents at all. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War II, and they risk living in poverty more than others - nearly 1 in 5.
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Young males who lacked a college degree were most likely to lose jobs due to reduced demand for blue-collar jobs in construction, manufacturing and transportation during the downturn. Among teenagers, employment was less than 30 percent.
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Opting to stay put, roughly 5.9 million Americans 25-34 last year lived with their parents, an increase of 25 percent from before the recession. Driven by a record 1 in 5 young men who doubled up in households, men are now nearly twice as likely as women to live with their parents.

Marriages fell to a record low last year of just 51.4 percent among adults 18 and over, compared with 57 percent in 2000. Among young adults 25-34, marriage was at 44.2 percent, also a new low.'

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Comments

Young men are not rushing into marriage. That's the only good thing coming from this. They couldn't, undoubtedly, even if they wanted to, which I suspect they don't, as a rule. The earlier in life someone gets married, the more likely people are to get a divorce (at least in societies where divorce is an option).

The trend toward marriage later in life is a good one, at least in terms of driving down the divorce rate. When people know themselves better (something that usually comes in time), they are less likely to make gigantic mistakes like marrying someone who is wrong for them, hence less likely to divorce.

But other than that, this news is really bad.

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2011-09-23 01:56