# Are Young Men Quiet Quitting Life? Marriage, Housing and Affordability - Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2115562316905304532 - Source account: [@ZubyMusic](https://x.com/ZubyMusic) - Source language: English - Duration: 7:00 - Published: 2026-10-29 - Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability ## Transcript [0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability) Do you think that there's a male version of quiet quitting basically for these young men? Are they just opting out because of all of this confusion? [0:09](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=9) A large percent are, yeah. I don't know the numbers, but a significant percentage of even millennials, but certainly Gen Z, and maybe this is going into Gen Alpha, are basically just like, "Well, I don't know what to do and I don't know what society is going to reward, and I don't want to be berated, [0:27](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=27) so I'm just gonna chill. I'm not going to pursue much," right? Beyond basic survival. [0:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=34) As long as I can keep myself okay and I can feed myself. [0:38](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=38) You know, a lot of people have given up hope on ever getting married. Given... [0:41](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=41) Some, some guys have totally given up on relationships period. [0:44](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=44) Mm-hmm. Um, even more people have given up on ever having children. They're, you know, intentionally just like, "I can't even afford it. [0:51](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=51) You know, if any, if any woman would even have me, like, you know, like, I can't even afford to have children. I can't afford to ever buy a house." [0:57](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=57) Mm-hmm. All of these things that used to be quite normative are increasingly running away from a larger and larger percentage of the population. [1:06](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=66) So just in terms of affordability, that's completely changed. If you go back just a few decades ago, probably the, the average man could sustain an entire family from a sole income. [1:21](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=81) Whereas now, due to a whole host of factors, that's still possible if you're a high earner or if you are willing to sacrifice a lot of things in terms of lifestyle, you can still do that. But the vast majority of households, whether we're talking about the UK or the USA or any other developed country, they're typically going to have both [1:43](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=103) spouses working normally full-time, but at least one person working full-time, other working part-time, just to be able to afford to live, and even then they might be struggling. So w- we're kind of in this strange situation where objectively, a lot of good progress has been made in a lot of ways, but it's this strange paradox or [2:07](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=127) conundrum where things that used to be kind of basic and achievable for the vast majority of the population increasingly seem very difficult to achieve. [2:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=139) And as a result, fewer people are getting married. [2:22](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=142) Those who do are doing it a lot later. Um, fewer people are having children. [2:26](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=146) Those who even do have children generally are having fewer of them. [2:30](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=150) So sure, GDP per capita is going up. Yeah. [2:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=154) And certain measures are going up. Life expectancy has improved. [2:38](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=158) There are a lot of, uh, things to be grateful for for modern society, but if you look at depression rates and anxiety rates and suicidal ideation and self-harm and just a general sense of directionlessness and lack of meaning, um, those things seem to be much higher- Yeah ... than they were previously. [2:58](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=178) Obviously, we're not the type of people, either one of us, and, you know, the person listening is not either to play a victim to all this. [3:05](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=185) Mm-hmm. This can all be true, and you can still try to triumph in life and, and you still can. [3:10](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=190) But I guess my one other comment on this is how much of this... [3:13](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=193) Like, I've also heard the counterargument, which is, um, your grandparents could afford to live on a single salary because your grandparents went out to dinner twice a month. [3:23](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=203) Mm-hmm. Uh, they went to a local small, uh, restaurant or diner. You know, they largely ate in. [3:31](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=211) They had one landline phone. They might have even had one car. [3:35](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=215) They never traded in the car. There were, you know, no lattes. [3:38](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=218) There were no European vacations. You know, it was just different. We didn't have all of these extra things that were layered first over a home, a house, a family, uh, and kids. [3:52](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=232) So do you think that... Is that all true, or are we kind of ferreting away our money on all of these material things first, or just categorically no, economically it's not the same for this generation as the two previous? [4:05](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=245) Yeah. I think your, your point is absolutely and objectively correct. [4:09](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=249) People's expectations have changed. People's lifestyles have changed. [4:12](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=252) There are... Most people, I don't think, spend or use their money wisely, generally speaking. [4:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=259) Um, and you know, the average person's lifestyle is most people are living beyond their means. [4:26](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=266) Mm-hmm. At the same time, there are objective economic factors, like I said, of the amount people are earning versus how much housing costs- Yeah ... and what that ratio is, and that has just changed. [4:40](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=280) Um, and so if you look in terms of real wages, I don't know about the US, but in the UK, real wages have not risen. [4:48](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=288) When I say real wages, I'm talking about, like, purchasing power. [4:51](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=291) Mm-hmm. So accounting for inflation. Um, real wages haven't risen in about 40 years. [4:56](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=296) Yeah. It's about the same in the US. We've seen very little. [4:58](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=298) We've seen actually huge productivity gains, so we're- Mm-hmm ... producing a lot more. [5:01](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=301) Yes. But we haven't actually seen income gains. [5:04](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=304) Yeah. Yeah. So I think all of these things are true, and I think with a lot of these conversations, people try to take multivariate problems and pick their favorite univariate issue. [5:14](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=314) Yeah. Whether that is, well, it's just the economy, or it's just feminism, or it's just, uh, you know, this side or that side or it's immigration, right? [5:24](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=324) It's immigration coming in, and that's suppressing the wages and so on. [5:26](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=326) And multiple things can be true at once. [5:29](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=329) Yeah. Right? It's really rare to have, uh, something like this and it's just one thing that's true. And if you're talking about issues and solutions, there's always going to be the individual level, and then there's the more sort of systemic or collective level. [5:44](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=344) And it's absolutely true that no matter the issue that we're talking about in society to the deg- degree it exists, on an individual level, uh, if someone is determined and they're strong-willed and they're competent, you can overcome almost any systematic problem, [6:02](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=362) unless you're living in, like, a truly, truly oppressive regime, right? Like, no matter how brilliant you are, if you're stuck in North Korea, no matter how entrepreneurial or creative or whatever we are, we probably, no matter what, can't achieve much, right? [6:17](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=377) But if you're in a country that isn't like that, then as an individual, you can buck the trend, right? [6:22](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=382) You've got to. Right. If 40% of the population is obese and 70% plus is overweight, that doesn't mean that you as an individual have to fall into that. [6:32](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=392) Yeah. Right? You can, you can buck the trend, but at the same time, if something is not working for across hundreds of millions or dozens of millions of people, um, it's worth looking at and thinking, "Okay, is there maybe something that we can do at scale to tilt this in a more favorable [6:49](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=409) direction so that the average person can be doing well and be feeling like, you know, they're at least... [6:56](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/ZdH0WWfe1iob/en/are-young-men-quiet-quitting-life-marriage-housing-and-affordability?t=416) It's worth playing the game because at least you've got a chance of winning?"