Qualification Inflation
The second most famous alumnus of my high school (the most famous being Charles Manson) was hippie-turned-yuppie Jerry Rubin. Rubin was a prominent 60s radical activist, complete with long hair, beard, and drugs, who then morphed into a Wall Street wheeler-dealer who advocated the continuing march of corporate capitalism. I bring this up not to explore the ethics of this odd transformation, but rather to point out that it would be impossible today.
Why? Well, because today Rubin's resume would be in a pile with 100 others, up against 100 people who did not have gaps in their employment history, and who instead had the right background and right internships. It's amazing: 35 years ago a BA in sociology from the University of Cincinnati, with a several year gap as an unemployed radical no less, could get you a job on Wall Street! Today that same degree, even without the activist years, will put you in fierce competition with similarly qualified people for jobs slinging lattes at Starbucks.
Here in physics, things are certainly very different than they used to be. A generation ago, people would get PhDs from random places like Kansas State and then waltz right into permanent staff scientist positions at Bell Labs or various national labs, or even professor gigs, firmly established in the career by the time they were 26. Today people with PhDs from the best programs, average time now 6 years, routinely do at least two postdocs, all the while moving around and making crap pay, and then who knows what positions will open up.
Many jobs that a generation ago were filled with high school graduates or even GEDs now require not only college but their own specific Masters degree. I'm thinking of librarian, physical therapist, high school administrator, and so on.
Add to this mix the cost of these college and grad programs, and the insane cost of housing compared to a generation ago, and I don't understand how the vast majority of this and subsequent generations will ever be able to settle into a 'stable' adult life in the manner of our parents. Who can afford to buy a house and have kids and save a bit of money anymore? This brings to mind another telling anecdote from the past: The currently middle-aged machinist in my lab bought the suburban house the he still lives in when he was 18, having made the $3000 down payment with money he saved working during high school summers. It is now worth over $200,000. There was a time when people could actually do that! We've gone from careers being plentiful and easily accessible and housing being affordable to careers being rare and cutthroat and housing being precious. As has been said, this is the first generation in history that can expect a lower standard of living than its parents.
What happened?
The way I see it, this is basically the result of the first wave of outsourcing - the one in the 80s and 90s that sent our manufacturing jobs overseas. We almost forget now that there was a time, 35 years ago and before, when people could graduate high school and move into unionized manufacturing jobs, and they would have a house, two cars and a boat by the time they were 35. Another huge and largely concurrent force was the shifting of many jobs from being solid working class positions to work that is now done by illegal immigrants - I am thinking here of careers like construction and farming. The bottom line is that with these steps, the available pool of middle class jobs shrunk dramatically. With this narrowing of available middle class-track jobs, there were now many more people aiming for the white collar type jobs that everyone now seeks, as they were now the only remaining path to a middle class lifestyle. These white collar jobs and the poorly paid service sector are all the employment that is left for Americans.
With many more people now in the market for white collar type jobs, the de facto qualifications for any given career will certainly go up, and so it goes on up the chain of careers, giving rise to the situation we are in and that I described. The unfortunate rub is that this has benefited basically nobody.
And it is only going to get worse now that we are in the second wave of outsourcing, this time taking many of our white collar jobs away (computer programming, tech support, radiology) and in the next few years there is no reason why software architecture, financial analysis, and even hardware design can't be offshored. So, looking forward, there will be still fewer 'good' jobs available to Americans, and we will see the base level of qualifications, and the number of years spent in marginal entry level positions continue to rise for every one of these careers. Mark my words, in the coming decades, our plumbers, electricians, welders, and UPS drivers will have bachelors, then masters, then doctoral degrees in Piping systems science, Electric systems science, Materials, and Geography respectively.
What can be done? Well, if we are resigned to the situation - and many say that it is inevitable in a globalized economy - that is resigned to more and more people spending more and more time in school and more and more time in poorly paid internships, postdocs, and entry level positions of all kinds, then we must undertake some steps to make life in this new reality more palatable. Universal health care and cheaper higher education would be good starting points. Beyond that, we're going to need a lot more affordable housing. And on and on basically with a litany of European-style social programs. If we don't get on the stick, life is truly going to suck for young people in this country in the coming decades.
