The more accurate response would be choices. Choices not to get an education - academic or trade - that would qualify a person for a remunerative career path. Choices ... here in Silicon Valley, companies with pension plans are rare. BUT companies that have 401K plans in which they match employee contributions 50%-100% are somewhere between very common and ubiquitous. The employee has to choose whether and how much to contribute (new Beemer or Lexus every 3 years? lattes at Starchucks every day? new iPhone every year or two? ..... means little or no 401K contribution).
You left something out. Cyclical markets resulting in boom/bust economics for many workers.
Especially noted in the oil industry over the last 40 years. It doesn't matter how good you are. You might have a stellar reputation, but when the boom hits, you work mostly for one client, and there are so many new people, you aren't known well. When the bust comes, you're expensive, and if you've done your job well, remaining wells will be drilled with people with less expertise, because the process has become formulaic.
So, you go from 300+K to 0 in two years. By the time you recover from that, in a collapsing market, you're back to square one.
Basically, you save up for the next bust during the boom.
I use oil as one example, I am sure there are others, but 4 decades in the oil industry mean I am well familiar with the cycles.
