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Media | Policymakers | Researchers
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How Does Family Structure, Family History, Socioeconomic Status, Race-Ethnicity, Disability, and Immigration Status Affect the Transition?
Diverging Development: The Not-so-Invisible Hand of Social Class in
the United States Failure to Launch or Launching Too Soon? The self-focus, exploration, and perceived possibility of young adulthood, argues Maria Kefalas, in her May 2006 Commentary, is a luxury reserved for only the most privileged elite—for only about 1 in 4 25-year-olds, or just about 27 percent of this age group, earn that all-important college credential which makes the freewheeling twenty-something years possible.... Debunking the Myth of Immigrant Criminality: Imprisonment Among First- and Second-Generation Young Men In his address to the nation on May 15, 2006, President George W. Bush asserted, "Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, it strains state and local budgets, and brings crime to our communities " [emphasis added]. To the contrary, Network Researchers Rubén G. Rumbaut, Roberto G. Gonzales, Golnaz Komaie, and Charlie V. Morgan find that the incarceration rate of U.S. born men (3.51 percent) is four times the rate of foreign born men (0.86 percent) . They also find that f or every group without exception, the longer immigrants reside in the United States, the higher their incarceration rates. The Effects of Family Background on Young Adult Children’s Success Comparing two groups of young adults who came to maturity in the 1970s and 1990s, Melanie Guldi, Marianne E. Page, and Ann Huff Sevens, in their chapter in The Price of Independence, find that children of more affluent parents remain more likely to complete college and report higher earnings than their lower income peers, despite significant increases in government programs designed to help low-income children escape their parents’ economic legacy. Off to a Good Start? Higher Education Versus Single Motherhood Several factors in life that can set a young person on the road to success. Two, however, stand out: education and avoiding early parenthood. Gary Sandefur and coauthors in their chapter in On the Frontier of Adulthood compare the outcomes of two cohorts, one born in 1964 and the other born in 1974, on the basis of their education and childbearing choices and their family and school characteristics. Their findings confirm trends of expanding educational opportunities for young people between the two decades and the delay in marriage. The findings also reflect the national rise in out-of-wedlock childbearing. Beyond these patterns, however, Sandefur and coauthors find that family social structure and resources and the type of high school one attends greatly influence outcomes. The Role of Social Class and Early Outlooks in Positive Transitions to Adulthood Family social class, as well as extended education and delayed family formation, highly influence youth’s varied paths into adulthood, but D. Wayne Osgood and coauthors, in their chapter in On the Frontier of Adulthood, maintain that social class is not destiny. Is It Getting Harder to Get Ahead? Race-based inequality has increased while gender-based inequality decreased, according to Mary Corcoran and Jordan Matsudaira, in their chapter in On the Frontier of Adulthood, and high-income families can more easily pass along economic advantage to their children than poor youth can escape poverty. Family Support during the Transition to Adulthood Robert Schoeni
and Karen Ross find that the amount of material support received from parents
by youth between the ages of 18 and 34 has increased substantially over the
last 30 years. In one of the
first empirical attempts to estimate the amount of assistance that children receive during young adulthood, the The Dynamics of Assimilation In their study of the new generation of Americans reared in immigrant families, John Mollenkopf, Mary C. Waters, Jennifer Holdaway, and Philip Kasinitz find in their chapter in On the Frontier of Adulthood that most, but by no means all, of these youth reproduced the initial advantage or disadvantage of their parents. Linguistic Life Expectancies: Immigrant Language Retention in Southern California Some have argued that Spanish-speaking immigrants are less likely to give up their native language than prior waves of European immigrants, and that this poses a threat to the American way of life and their assimilation. If assimilation is required for attainment of an education, career, and home, then a resistance to the English language would delay a transition to adulthood. Rumbaut, Massey, and Bean find, however, that Spanish-speaking Americans hold on to their native tongue for only one more generation than other groups. Half of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and European immigrants lose fluency in their parents languages by the second generation. By the third, it is gone completely. For immigrants from Mexico and Central America, half have stopped speaking Spanish fluently by the third generation, and less than 10% speak fluently by the fourth. In addition, the use of a native tongue in the household is gone for all groups by the third generation. The Second Generation in Early Adulthood: New Findings from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study Ruben Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes examine how children of immigrants are faring as they become young adults in the United States. They find tat to a greater extent than for earlier waves of immigrants, the children of today’s immigrants face a split society that offers both a wealth of opportunities and serious threats to their well-being. Conference Report: Adolescence and the Transition to Adulthood for Vulnerable Youth: Rethinking Public Policy for a New Century This report summarizes a two-day conference held in Chicago featuring several panelists of scholars, policymakers, and practitioners discussing how we move forward with policies to support vulnerable populations as they enter adulthood.
Youth Aging Out of Foster Care Approximately 20,000 youth age out of foster care each year. Although the state works to reunite children with their families, such reunions are not always possible. At the end of the day, then, it is government, acting as a parent, which decides when these 20,000 foster youth are ready to be on their own. Juvenile Justice and the Transition to Adulthood Transitioning to Adulthood for Young Adults with Mental Health Issues Transitions are almost always difficult, but for young people with mental health problems, moving into adulthood is made more difficult by the complexity of their individual mental health conditions and the complexity of the mental health system. J. Heidi Gralinski-Bakker and coauthors, and Phillip Lyons and Gary Melton in their chapters in On Your Own without a Net, take a closer look at this group of young adults with mental disorders, focusing particularly on those who do manage to “make it” as an adult. Weaving Young Ex-Offenders Back into the Fabric of Society Christopher Uggen and Sara Wakefield, and Jeremy Travis and Christy Visher address in their chapters in On Your Own without a Net, the challenges of integrating young offenders back into society. If we are to reintegrate these troubled young people into society as working, contributing adults, the authors argue, we must provide them the supports to find a job, build a family, and participate fully in civic society. The Transition to Adulthood for the Special Education Population The seeds of a successful transition to adulthood are planted well before high school graduation. This may be especially true for youth with cognitive, emotional, or physical limitations, who are typically at greater risk for poorer outcomes in the job market and in their civic lives. Phyllis Levine and Mary Wagner show in their chapters in On Your Own without a Net, how youth in special education are supported while in school and after. Homeless Youth and the Perilous Passage to Adulthood Life on the street is hard for anyone, but it can be especially treacherous for homeless youth. Reconnecting to the traditional avenues into adulthood, whether school, job training, or employment, is imperative if these youth are to escape the hardship of the streets. In their chapter in On Your Own without a Net, John Hagan and Bill McCarthy survey homeless youth from two Canadian cities that have vastly different approaches to homelessness. They find that, if supported, and if contact with police is minimized, homeless youth can better regain their foothold on a productive path to adulthood. Moving into Adulthood for Youth with Disabilities and Serious Health Concerns For families with youth who have disabling conditions, the end of high school coincides with a number of changes for which they may be unprepared: school to work, home to independent living, pediatric to adult health care, among others. In their chapters in On Your Own without a Net,, Robert Blum, and Patience Haydock White and Leslie Gallay examine the needs of youth with disabilities and other serious health issues as they leave childhood for adulthood. Youth During Transition to Adulthood Face Increasing Health Risk and Less Access to Health Care New report by Kathleen Mullan Harris and coauthors in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine reports traces the health of young adults in the United States.
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