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I'd blame a lot of this on the destruction of our communal living patterns. We used to live in extended family groups. It was reasonable and expected to live with your parents and siblings. If you did leave the family home it often was just to build a home on the same property.
But then the idea of the nuclear family was popularized, probably to make more money and sell house, and here we are.
To be clear since what I said has been immediately misinterpreted, family centric living patterns were torn apart by capitalism. It heavily favors capitalism when we are separated from each other and lose community. This wasn't a benign social shift
This is nonsense.
In Western/Central Europe and Scandinavia, smaller families are the norm, yet nobody sees 80 year old people working.
This is entirely the fault of unchained capitalism, corruption and half a century of lobbying against the working class.
Sweden (I'm using them as an example) has a comparable employment rate at every age group than the US?
In the US about 41% of people 55 and older are working, compared to almost 38% in Sweden.
Edit: I did my math super wrong. Sweden doesn't have "much more" people at that age working, they have slightly fewer.
But what's the statistic for people aged 65 and above?
I'm not sure. The US only posts "55 and up", I couldn't find any more detailed info than that.
No offense, but then your first statement is a bit irrelevant, don't you think?
Obviously people here will work past 55, as the retirement age in Europe is somewhere between 60 and 68, depending on the actual country.
Not saying seniors are living it large here, but I would be appalled to see an 80yo (have to) work as a delivery-person
I mean it's more relevant than your original point because I actually have sources to back my claims up.
And an 80 year old working to make ends meet is appalling and very rare here too, don't think that we are okay with that. And I would imagine there are a few 80 year olds working in every country.
Let's not be unreasonable, there can be multiple causes and multiple solutions.
Those countries also used to have a more communal structure amongst families and that still was dismantled.
But they actually implemented social programs and living wages making it not an issue.
Also yes it is capitalism fault. It all is, including the dismantling of our communities to favor more isolated living. It's design to separate us and disempower the worker.
We have something called pensions.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you.
But I still don’t want to live with my narcissistic MAGA parents, so…evidently things have gone really far sideways and it’ll be hard to rebuild that social fabric.
I don't want to live with my autistic parents either
Honestly same. I haven't spoken with my dad in months thanks to his MAGA views. I blame this "fuck you I got mine" as a result of community destruction
I hadnt spoken to my mom in years due to her pills and Fox News bullshit. She died alone and miserable a couple of weeks ago
Isolation must decrease empathy for others. Being around the same group of other people a lot increases your empathy for them, which makes it harder to hurt them. We don’t have that failsafe anymore.
More productive generating more money than ever before.