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Media | Policymakers | Researchers
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Are Young Adults Taking Longer to Grow Up? On the Frontier of Adulthood: Emerging Themes and New Directions Entry
into adulthood is longer, more ambiguous, and generally occurs in a more
complex and less uniform fashion than in the past, finds Frank F. Furstenberg,
Jr., Rubén G. Rumbaut, and Richard A. Settersten, Jr., in
the first chapter of On the Frontier of Adulthood. The authors outline the historical changes that have given rise to this new developmental stage of "pre-adulthood" Just as in the early 20th century, when adolescence emerged as a distinct stage in life, we are now
witnessing cultural and economic shifts that are forcing youth to adapt in new ways. Are Young Adults Afraid to Leave the Nest? In this Commentary, Network chair Frank Furstenberg examines whether young adults today are just coddled or if there's other reasons for their delayed departure from the nest. Young Adults in the United States: A Profile In this report, Rubén G. Rumbaut sketches a profile of young adults
in the United States at the turn of the twenty-first century.
There are approximately 67 million persons in the United States
between the ages of 18 and 34—more than 27 million of whom are between
the ages of 18 and 24 . One of every five Americans aged 25–34 (almost
20%) was born outside the United States, and fully 30% of young adults 18–24
were below the poverty line. Among 18–24 year olds, only 16% had reached
four or five of the “milestones” of adulthood: leaving home, finishing
school, entering the workforce, getting married, and having children. The Changing Nature of Young Adulthood throughout the Century In their chapter in On the Frontier of Adulthood ,
Elizabeth Fussell and Frank Furstenberg describe the delay of young people
filling adult roles and the more varied combinations of adult roles they fill. The Transition to Adulthood During the Twentieth Century In their chapter of On the Frontier of Adulthood, Elizabeth Fussell
and Frank Furstenberg describe the delay of young people filling adult roles
and the more varied combinations of adult roles they fill. In general, marriage
and child-bearing have been delayed as the educational process has grown longer.
By the age of 30, however, the status of men and women in 1900 and 2000
do not look as different from one another as they did in their 20s. Straight from the Hearthland: Coming of Age in the Ellis, Iowa Carr and Kefalas draw on their in-depth interviews with young adults in rural Iowa to weave a story of why some leave home, and often the state, why others stay, and how the role the community plays in shaping young adults lives. Their find that youths' early work histories, their family, teachers and guidance counselors, and their own ambitions, abilities, and proclivities all come together to shape these decisions to leave, stay, and sometimes return. For their own lives, the decisions can mean a more traditional route through young adulthood, as demonstrated by the Stayers and their nearly lockstep path through the markers of adulthood: finishing high school, leaving home, finding a job, marrying, and starting a family, in that order. For those who leave, the decision can lead them along a more circuitous path that more closely mirrors the path taken by many young adults today, as documented by other researchers from the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood. However, as the paths themselves reveal, all of these youth, because of the many more options available to them in today’s world, and paradoxically, because of the region’s own economic and social traditionalism, pull and push them in different directions, along a variety of routes to adulthood. Women Moving into Adulthood: An International Comparison Elizabeth Fussell and Ann Gauthier, in their chapter of On the
Frontier of Adulthood, find that American women, for the most part, are
not diverging dramatically from the traditional path of marriage and childbearing,
only delaying it. The delay exists in Europe and Canada as well, with home
leaving earliest in Sweden and latest in Italy. The authors link these trends
to national differences in welfare systems and cultural conservatism. "Modern" Family Paths Not So New After All Lawrence L. Wu and Jui-Chung Allen Li, in their chapter in On the Frontier of Adulthood find that although women’s marriage
and childbearing experiences have increasingly diverged from what is commonly
regarded as the "norm," this diversity is not confined to recent
generations. Blurring the Boundary: Changes in the Transition from College Participation to Adulthood In their chapter in the forthcoming book The
Price of Independence, Maria D. Fitzpatrick and Sarah E. Turner show
that the transition from postsecondary education to “adulthood” defined
in terms of full-time, long-term labor force participation is less and less
a “once and for all” decision. Increasingly, a gradual transition,
extending well beyond the years immediately following high school
graduation is observed. Becoming American/Becoming New Yorkers: The Second Generation in a Majority Minority City In gateway cities such as New York and Los Angeles, the story of young adults
is largely the story of immigrant youth. Philip Kasinitz, John Mollenkopf,
Mary C. Waters, and Jennifer Holdaway find that the educational attainment
of immigrant youth is linked strongly to their country of origin. For example,
Chinese and Russian immigrants in New York City have college graduation rates
on par with native whites (60–70%). Young adults from South America,
the Dominican Republic, and the West Indies, on the other hand, have graduation
rates nearer those of native blacks (20–30%). The trend holds regardless
of parental income or education. Sticking Around: Delayed Departure from the Parental Nest in Western Europe In Italy, more than half of all young men live with their parents until
age 30. Katherine Newman and Sofya Aptekar, in their chapter in The Price
of Independence, trace the transition to adulthood in Europe, finding that
youth there are responding to high housing costs, less stable jobs, and
higher unemployment by living at home longer. Early Incarceration Spells and the Transition to Adulthood In
his chapter of The Price of Independence, Steven Raphael
finds that for four markers of adulthood—earnings, employment, marriage,
and living independently— those with a prison record fared more poorly
than those without. He also finds that it is incarceration itself,
not a tendency for law-breaking behaviors that accounts for the difference. The Second Generation in Early Adulthood Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, through results from their
Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), find that today’s second
generation immigrant children have new challenges in achieving successful adulthood.
A two-tier labor market with low-pay, low-education service jobs on one side;
high-pay, high education jobs on the other; and precious little in between,
requires that second generation immigrants jump an educational and social barrier
in a single generation that took previous waves of immigrants several to achieve.
In addition, these immigrants may receive a hostile reception, and a culture
more infused with gangs and violence than hard work and aspiration. Portes
and Rumbaut find that a strong connection to the morals and values of the “old
country,” along with educated and involved parents, is the best way for
today’s second generation young adults to find success in America. The Effect of Timing and Sequence of Choices on Young Adults’ Futures Ted Muow, in his chapter in On the Frontier of Adulthood documents the shifting pattern in sequence and timing of markers
of adulthood with data that allow detailed insight into the full sequence
of these steps, and explores whether the sequence of events can predict future
outcomes. A Cross-National Survey of Trends in the Transition to Economic Independence Lisa Bell, Gary Burtless, Janet Gornick, and Timothy M. Smeeding, in their chapter in The Price of Independence find that between the mid-1980s and 2000 in Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy,
the United Kingdom, and the United States, it became increasingly difficult
for young men (aged 18–24) and women in their early 20s to be economically
self-sufficient. Women in their late 20s and early 30s, however,
saw somewhat improved prospects for economic independence, albeit they were
starting from a point that was well below that among men of the same age.
U.S. young adults fared somewhat better than their counterparts in Europe.
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