Quiet Quitting? Is it real, and if so, why?

Poster that shows up in wide circulation, and posted here via the Fair Use exception.  I don't know who the author is, but this was used as long ago as 1987 on the cover of Fifth Estate magazine, which is apparently a left wing British journal.  They have an online presence you may find.  Anyhow, this seems to sum up what some regard as the view of the youngest generations entering work, but at the same time, this image is so old that it predates my legal career. . .what's that say?

Recently, I posted this item:

Quiet Quitting and Lying Flat. Looking at the trend with a long generational lens.

Today, dear reader, I ask this question.

Is there really something going on here?

May sound odd, but I’m just not sure.

Some of my friends in the business and legal worlds very much insist, sometimes with real anger, that there is something going on here.  What they generally seem to feel is that during COVID-19 the Federal Government acclimated millions of Americans, including millions of young Americans, to doing nothing.  Indeed, some insist that younger people aren't working as they're on the Federal dole, although those programs have run out.

I'd note, if that's true, the entire thing would be one big failed "Universal Basic Income" experiment.

I think something is going on, but as I've noted before, I think people are generally misreading it.  Here's what I've recently stated.

Much of what we see today in general family trends is merely a return to the past.  Adult children who are not married living at home is a return to the past.  Even married children living in a parent's home is a return to the past.  Not really feeling like moving all over the country, and focusing on work to support your life, rather than it being your life, well. . . that is in some ways too.

But I think my view here is a minority one.

Maybe nothing is really going on at all.  Or maybe what we're seeing is purely economic. With a worker shortage, people don't have to sell their labor as dear, and can afford to be choosy in all sorts of ways.

That definitely wasn't the case when I was young.

And I've been hearing this about younger generations since I was a child.  According to the Baby Boomer generation, no generation after them wanted to work.  But according to their parents, that generation was lazy and didn't want to work, when it was young.

Maybe the young are never keen on entering work if they don't have to, and hold some of their cards back.  Or maybe a feature of modern industrial work, as opposed to more traditional distributist type work, creates this perception.

Or maybe younger generations really have had it.

Opinions?