My grandparents came here on a boat 50 years ago with their gaggle of children. They did manage to find jobs and be self-supporting, but if they had been economically dependent the entire time they were in Canada, plus their children had been economically dependent until adulthood, there would have been about 150 total person-years economically dependent on the state.
My grandparents' direct descendants have, so far, put in nearly 200 total person-years of full-time gainful employment, plus an additional 60 total person-years of part-time work like you have as a student.
The majority of their grandchildren are still in school. I'm the oldest and I'm not yet 30. The youngest is still in high school. Parity between my grandparents' hypothetical person-years of dependence and their descendants' person-years of productive employment may well have been reached before I even finished university. Barring mass unemployment, we're going to reach 300 person-years of productive employment within the next decades.
Wouldn't it be interesting to do research and see to what extent this pattern holds throughout the general population?
Edited to add: It has also been pointed out to me that some of my grandparents' descendants have run businesses and therefore created jobs, and some have been responsible for teaching or training future members of their own fields. (To say nothing of the fact that some have saved lives.) So our ROI is greater than just the taxes and consumer spending produced by our salaries.
1 comment:
Cool. I like it.
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