anorlunda said:
Where is the tipping point? I summarily pegged it at 50% unemployment, when the unemployed become the majority.
Are you talking about the employment rate, or the dependency rate?
Employment rate is the percentage of the working population able to find work.
Dependency rate it the percentage of people not of labour force age to the labour force,
Both are fluidic .for a population. For example, we have had the baby boomer explosion after the second world war, which seemed to have driven economic development, and social structure expansion, first as young children and their needs were met, then as a driver as they became of working age with the desire for homes, food, and other articles of consumption. Now nearing retirement for many they are falling into the statistic of dependency ration.
As seen here,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio, this ratio hovers around 70% for most OECD countries in financial health. The 30% not working may be unemployed, not looking for work, enrolled in re-education programs, etc,
Also seen here,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_ratio, the dependent population, those that rely on someone else to supply, either of child dependency, or age dependency has varied over the recent decades for regions of the world, where on average it has hovered around 60%.
Have more kids and the rate goes up. More old people and the rate goes up. In both these instances, the number of working people providing for a dependent of the population, will decrease, putting a strain on the income apportioned towards the dependent, versus that available to themselves.
One can play with the definitions of labour force and dependency to easily change the ratios.
That I have not done, but can envision the labour market having an age reduction from the present 15 to 65, ( to perhaps 30 to 40, or whatever ) which if jobs are scarce, would keep the employment ration constant ( if that is a desirable ) for a particular economic and demographic situation. The effect on dependency ratio is self evident. An expansion of the labour force could come about by increasing the age of retirement ( as people live longer ), or lower the age from 15 as an entrance into the work force ( reversal of when child labour becomes an issue ).
Recent efforts to raise the retirement age for certain countries - the point at which the aged can collect their pension - in order to reduce the dependency ratio for the population, have been met with resistance. In turn, efforts to increase the child dependency ratio dependency ratio ( with incentives for couples to have more children in first world countries ) meets some support in certain quarters.
Perhaps in the future, if the scenario of AI robots doing all the 'work', the position for a job will entail big button pusher, and blinking light monitor, and that it. For which of course one would need a highly educated and trained individual, with compensation of excellent monetary value and providing needed self-worth to the individual.
How it plays out, and will it play out well, is an unknown. I do not think that for most individuals, continuous play sits favourably, even if we have some jobs that already do such, such as sports, art, parades for example.
Ask anyone in those fields if they have a job and they say yes. Definition of a what is a job will most likely continue the change the from the traditional definition of hewers of wood and drawers of water ( manual labour ) to more service ( people service and manufacturing service ) and entertainment venues.
Nice TED talk.
The discussions are meant for people to think about the issues, and apparently this has.
