The link between video games and unemployment

By R.A. | WASHINGTON

IN 2016 the video-gaming industry racked up sales of about $100bn, making it one of the world’s largest entertainment industries. The games on offer run the gamut from time-wasting smartphone apps to immersive fantasy worlds in which players can get lost for days or weeks. Indeed, the engrossing nature of games is itself cause for concern. Last year four economists published a paper suggesting that high-quality video games—an example of what they call “leisure luxuries”—are contributing to a decline in work among young people, and especially young men. Given the social and economic importance of early adulthood, such a trend could spell big trouble. But are video games causing the young to turn on and drop out?

In making the link between gaming and work, the economists—Mark Aguiar, Mark Bils, Kerwin Charles and Erik Hurst—point to compelling data. From 2000 and 2015, the employment rate for men in their 20s without a college education dropped ten percentage points, from 82% to 72%. Such men often live at their parents’ homes and tend not to marry at the same rate as their peers. They, do, on the other hand, play video games. For each hour less the group spent in work, time spent at leisure activities rose about an hour, and 75% of the increased leisure time was accounted for by gaming. Over the same period games became far more graphically and narratively complex, more social and, relative to other luxury items, more affordable. It would not be surprising if the satisfaction provided by such games kept some people from pursuing careers as aggressively as they otherwise might (or at all).