Millennial Husbands Are No More "Woke" Than Their Fathers. NewsWire

NEWSWIRE: 3/2/20

• Even as ideas about gender roles have grown more progressive, the distribution of household chores between men and women hasn’t really changed. 18- to 34-year-olds are no more likely than older couples to distribute most chores equitably, although they are more likely to say they do more of certain chores like cooking and washing dishes. (Gallup)
• NH: Over the last 25 years, from 1996 to 2019, there has been surprisingly little overall shift in the distribution of chores between men and women in the household. For example, women are still much more likely than men to do the laundry, clean the house, and prepare meals. See the first chart below.
• Without any age breakdown, however, it's hard to know which generation has been responsible for the change that has occurred. Presumably, many of the G.I. and Silent Generation respondents in 1996 were far more likely than younger generations (Boomers or Xers) at that time to divide household chores by gender. Many of those respondents were no longer with us by 2019. It would be nice to know whether this exit effect was responsible for most of the change. Or whether Millennials are more likely to allocate chores more equally than (specifically) Gen-Xers or Boomers.
• The New York Times answers this question by retabulating historical Gallup data from men by age bracket. See the second chart below. And here we see the answer. Apparently, the exit effect was large. Millennial men (age 18-34) were hardly any more likely to do chores than Gen-X men (age 35-55) or Boomer and older men (age 56+). When it comes to interior decorating, only 7% of Millennial men said they were more likely to do more it. With daily child care, 5%. With family activity planning, 9%. With housecleaning, 11%. Across these four chores, there was virtually no difference between Millennial, Xer, and Boomer men.
• Of those chores that did show a significant rise in Millennial male participation over older generations, two of them (yard work and car upkeep) were already traditional "male" domains. And another two--"investing and saving" and "bill paying"--raise further questions because, since the last peak of the economic cycle (2007), the employment rate of young women has risen and the employment rate of young men has fallen. IOW, Millennial men are less likely to be making the money but are more likely to be spending it.
• Here's another way to think about it. The likelihood of men doing chores rises when (a) he is earning less than his spouse or (b) when his spouse has a college degree. See charts three and four. The prevalence of both (a) and (b) have obviously been rising for Millennial young adults. This must mean that, after normalizing for spousal income and education, Millennial males are less likely to do chores than similarly situated Gen-X or Boomer males.
• No wonder first-wave Millennial women are so likely to report emotional burnout (see "Would Better Jobs Solve Millennial Burnout?") or to discover they just can't find a man worth marrying (see "Millennial Women Just Can't Find Enough Good Men").

 

 

 

 

• Singapore keeps adding new “baby bonuses” to entice would-be parents, but their birthrates have barely budged. Despite offering a long list of incentives from cash grants to public housing, government officials are still facing down one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. (The Wall Street Journal)
• NH: Baby bonuses? You name it, Singapore’s trying it. Would-be parents are able to get assistance with fertility treatments as well as maternity-related medical expenses. Once their first child is born, they’ll receive $8,000 cash in installments until he or she is 18 months old. Grants and tax rebates are also available to defray the cost of housing, preschool, vaccinations, and even passports for newborns. All of these programs are described in detail on the government website Hey Baby. And that’s not even touching on the fertility ad campaign that has been wallpapering Singapore’s train stations since 2016. (The force behind the campaign? A government-sponsored group called I Love Children.)
• I’ve explained before many of the drivers that strongly suppress fertility in East Asian nations--so strongly in fact that East Asians often resist even the most generous pro-natal incentives. The most extreme example is South Korea, which has them all: high affluence, high education levels, high urbanization, and a strong version of the Confucian ethic. (See “South Korea’s Total Fertility Rate Falls Below One” and “Singapore Struggles to Increase Birthrate.”) Singapore shares many of these drivers. The main differentiator is who lives there. Singapore’s second-largest ethnic group is the Malays, who are overwhelmingly Muslim and have markedly higher fertility rates than Singapore’s native Chinese and Indians. If it weren’t for the high-fertility segment of the population keeping its birthrates up, Singapore would probably be in the same boat as South Korea. 

• The number of visas granted to guest workers in the U.S. has nearly quadrupled over the past decade. Most of these visas go to Mexicans working in low-wage industries like agriculture, and a proposed rule change that will soon face the Senate could make the numbers rise even more. (The Economist)
• NH: These numbers are best understood in the context of a long-term decline in immigration from Latin America and from Mexico in particular. I have often discussed this. See “Annual Demographics Outlook: Q3 2018.”
• Soon after the Great Recession, immigration, both legal and illegal, fell drastically. The economy sucked, so there was less incentive to come to the United States. That was a short-term phenomenon. But as the economy has improved, the long-term downward driver continue to suppress immigration. That driver was all about demography. Dropping fertility rates in Latin America has resulted in smaller families and less migration pressure from each family's unemployed (and superfluous) third, fourth, and fifth child. At best, Trump's border crackdown reinforced a decline that was already obvious during the Obama years.
• This trend hasn’t stopped. Between the years 2017 and 2018 (the most recent years for which we have data), the U.S. foreign-born population grew by only 200,000. That's the lowest net immigration number (including both legal and illegal) since the Great Recession.
• But when it comes to the increase in guest workers, who enter the country with short-term work visas, here we see a rise. The H-2A visa, which has increased in numbers by around 200,000 since 2009, goes to agricultural workers and lasts from one to ten months. Many of these visas are seasonal and only last the three to four months of summer.
• In other words, the performance of the U.S. economy, which was once a short-term negative for immigration, has now become a short-term positive. Workers can now legally come over for a short stay, make good money, and then go home.

• Cigna is back with an update to their loneliness study: 61% of Americans now say they’re lonely, up from 54% in 2018. The latest study focuses on loneliness in the workplace; not surprisingly, those who are unhappy with their work-life balance or report poor relationships with their co-workers are more likely to be lonely. (Cigna)
• NH: 54% to 61% is a pretty significant jump in just two years. The grim portrait of loneliness that Cigna detailed in their previous report (see “All the Lonely People”) appears to have only gotten worse. The shares of Americans who agree with 11 statements about loneliness--e.g. “no one knows me well,” “I lack companionship,” “I feel isolated,” “I’m not close to anyone”--have all risen.
• Loneliness has increased in particular among men. In the 2018 study, men and women were about equally likely to say they were lonely. In this one, men reported higher loneliness scores overall and higher levels of isolation in the workplace. Nearly two-thirds of men (63%) have an loneliness score above 43, compared to 58% of women.
• What’s changed since the original report? I suspect it’s the economy. Employment rates are higher, and the recent trends in employment have been particularly beneficial for young women. This could help explain the growing gender gap in loneliness. 
• Meanwhile, Americans’ increased loneliness across the board could be a result of where we are in the business cycle. While it seems counterintuitive, the trend in mortality goes up in expansions and down in recessions. This is especially true for young adults. Yes, suicides sometimes increase when the economy is very bad, but this is greatly outnumbered by higher mortality from other causes deaths when times are good--the result of higher workload, less sleep, more cars on the road, more industrial accidents, more substance abuse, and similar trends that are linked to people being busier and more stressed. On the one hand, low unemployment cushions against loneliness by giving us a sense of purpose and activity. But on the other hand, by filling up our hours (which could take away from, say, time with family), it may also make us feel more socially isolated. A definitive study on the link between loneliness and the business cycle, alas, has yet to written.

• Retailers from Nordstrom to Whole Foods are trying a new strategy to draw shoppers into their stores: booze. Stores say that it’s helped boost sales and encourages customers to spend freely, but this practice is raising eyebrows for more reasons than one. (The Washington Post)
• NH: This might sound like a gimmick, but selling drinks to shoppers could be a real hit, especially in grocery stores. 
• The supermarket has never been anyone's favorite place. Cold isles, corporate branding, and the reminder you still have to cook can put anyone in a bad mood. But grocery stores know this, and they have been trying hard to to re-brand themselves. Think of the rising trend of grocery delivery. Many grocery stores will gather all your items from an online order and deliver the food to your car. Now stores like Whole Foods are even offering free delivery right to your doorstep. Instead of having costumers associate the store with doing chores, they can associate it with being served.
• Another tactic has been to serve hot and ready food. As take-out and restaurants have been booming, stores needed to compete with a population that is cooking less. Go into any grocery store and they will probably have ready to eat rotisserie chickens, sushi, mash potatoes, chicken wings, and the list goes on and on. Adding alcohol to the mix is simply a natural progression.
• Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, became famous for exploiting the concept of "the third place." The term refers to three kinds of places people spend their time: The first is the home, the second is work, and the third is place of community or leisure or just hanging out. Many believe that America lacks a "third place." Schultz's goal was to make Starbucks America's "third place" with costumers socializing and drinking coffee together. Supermarkets are similarly trying to remake themselves as a place to hang out. Buy some salami and cheese at the meat counter than go to the bar for a happy hour.
• Don't believe me that this will catch on? When I went shopping over the weekend, there were five guys having beers at the store's bar. (One or two them, perhaps, were just avoiding returning home.)

• The gender wage gap is narrowing as more women move into high-skilled jobs, where demand for workers is growing the most. Employment and wages are rising fastest in jobs requiring nonmechanical skills, particularly social and managerial skills. (Pew Research Center)
• NH: This major study by Pew tries to break down jobs into five skill types and then to account for the rising earnings of women (relative to men) since 1980 in terms of their mastery of these skill types. These types are social, fundamental, analytical, managerial, and mechanical. Think of a doctor or PR specialist. A lawyer or journalist. A physicist or systems analyst. A CEO. And an artisan or mechanic.
• The study makes clear that the growing educational credentials of women (relative to men), combined with their more determined career orientation, qualifies them better for jobs that require any one of these skill types. See the first chart below. Women are rising as a share of all managers, scientists, and lawyers. And they are declining as a share of all production, food-service, or administrative assistant jobs.
• But the study makes another important point. By skill type, women have been making their biggest employment gains (again, relative to men) in occupations stressing social, fundamental, and analytical skills. In social- and fundamental-skill professions, they now outnumber men. See the second chart below.
• Fortuitously, these two job categories have recently experienced (and are expected to continue to experience) the fastest employment gains in the U.S. economy. See the third chart below and "The Spread of the Pink-Collar Economy." Women may also find these occupations, which focus on people rather than things, more attractive in a society that allows women to choose their own careers. See "Why Are Occupations Still Segregated by Gender?"
• Not surprisingly, the fastest-growing job categories and correlated with the fastest-growing earnings. See the fourth chart below. To be sure, these jobs tend to be in industries experiencing the lowest productivity growth. But of course, that's the insight offered by the "Baumol Cost Disease Thesis"--something many of you have heard me discuss often: Low productivity growth is the reason why their employment growth rates are so high.

• Since 1982, Alaska has paid out a no-strings-attached annual dividend to full-time residents—and according to an NBER study, this has helped push up the state’s fertility rate. Researchers estimate that the dividend increased fertility by over 13% (relative to a “Synthetic Alaska” with no dividend) and reduced the spacing between births as well. (Vox)
• NH: Every year, the Alaska Permanent Fund gives every Alaskan man, woman, and child a cash dividend of varying amounts. This new study claims that the introduction of the dividend has increased the Alaskan fertility rate by 13.1%. When the researchers looked at the average spacing between births, Alaskan women came in at 43 months while the rest of the U.S. came in at 45 months.
• Now, I see nothing wrong with the basic assumptions of this study. Economics says that when you reward a behavior, you get more of it. By giving parents money for a new child, parents will probably have more children.
• But this study doesn't really offer a very robust test of the magnitude of this effect. Because Alaska is the only state with a UBI-like program, it's the only instance we can measure. This isn't like measuring the impact of a minimum-wage law, where you can model its impact on many different state or cities in different years. What's more, Alaska isn't exactly a typical state. It’s got a lot of young families, extreme weather, and a wilderness ethic that may attract people that aren't exactly representative of the rest of America. 
• More places would need to have a dividend program to be able to conduct a reliable study of the effect of pronatal subsidies on fertility rates. See “Is Universal Basic Income Really a Good Idea?”
• A stagnant ski market has resort operators increasingly adopting the pricing strategies of hotels and airlines. Skiers can now get deep discounts off high sticker prices for buying passes early, which is helping resorts lock in avid skiers but doing little to attract new ones. (New York)
• NH: A lifelong skier, I have been following the fortunes of this industry for decades. In recent years, it has suffered many challenges. Like golfing and boating and hunting, skiing (or snowboarding) is a sport that tends to require extreme amounts of time, practice, patience, and money to excel in--and thus puts off Xers and Millennials who just can't find a way to "get into it." It may also be a hard sell for nonwhite minorities, who may not share the Northern European fascination with frozen mountain landscapes. See "Boomers Retire from Skiing."
• Big-name resorts have responded by remaking themselves into customized, full-service "family vacation" destinations. This was a smart choice. It appealed to a lot of Boomer and Xer parents who wanted to bring their Millennial and Homeland kids. The customization of the resort brands, together with the high fixed-to-variable cost ratio of the industry, has also brought with it rampant price discrimination. As the article suggests, resorts maintain a very high per-diem sticker price--but then offer very deep discounts to customers who commit to "season" passes or who appear to the resorts to be income-constrained. See "The Airlines Always Win."

• Chief executives are facing more direct scrutiny from an unlikely source: their employees. Criticism that once came from investors or union leaders is increasingly coming from workers themselves, who expect executives to answer for decisions or behavior they don’t like. (The Wall Street Journal)
  
• NH: This article explains this shift by looking at what’s changed among employees. Millennials expect their values to align with the culture at work, and are often promised a “speak your truth”-type of environment by recruiters who tout just how open and transparent their companies are. The labor leaders who used to serve as middlemen are becoming scarce. And tools like Slack help foster continuous dialogue--and discontent--among employees.
• It’s all true. But I think the reporters overlook the other half of the story: what’s changed among CEOs. The great G.I. and Silent CEOs--Lee Iaccoca, Warren Buffett, Reuben Mark, et al.--put their blood and sweat into building their businesses. They had a passion for their product, their workers, and were gruff but honest about the realities of running a company.
• Today’s CEOs are cut from a different mold. For one thing, the majority are Boomers. (See “Hey Gen Xers, Hold Your Horses on Becoming CEO.”) They’re increasingly technocrats armed with gold-star credentials, but who lack the same connection to their companies and sense of loyalty that previous CEOs had. A growing share of exiting CEOs are now replaced by external candidates: From 2010 through 2018, 48% of replacements were outside candidates. In 2019, this rose to 56%. Often the new boss is coming from a totally different industry altogether. Guy Raz, the business podcaster, calls them “corporate America’s equivalent of a relief pitcher.” Professional CEOs, if you will. Good for business, perhaps, but not for employee morale.
• Boomers have strong  a sense of themselves as individuals. But personal vision doesn’t translate into being a great leader. Making it worse is the fact that Boomer-led firms have often adopted a New Age-y jargon that tends to frame all struggles or failures as “growth opportunities.” Employees don’t want to hear empty platitudes about “synergy” or “empowerment.” They want a boss who cares but also tells it to them straight.

DID YOU KNOW?

Planning for the Worst. Instagram influencers are known for hyping clothing lines and diet teas. But now, the likes of Kim Kardashian and Olivia Culpo are lining up behind a new kind of trendy product: disaster preparedness kits. The bright orange gear comes from Judy, a startup that offers several kits stocked with items from six categories: Tools, Warmth, Safety, First Aid, Food, and Water. By 2025, Allied Research Marketing projects that the global market for “incident and emergency management” products like these will surge to $423 billion, up from just $75.5 billion in 2017. An idea that was once reserved for “doomsday preppers” stockpiling MRE rations off-the-grid has morphed into something the average person can buy on Amazon and at Pottery Barn. Interest in these kits has been growing amid recent natural disasters like the California wildfires and mounting concerns over climate change—and they appeal strongly to Millennials looking to reduce risk and Xers seeking to gain a sense of control.