What's going on with young people today? the long and twisting path to adulthood

Future of Children

Volumn 20, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 19-41

  Settersten Jr , Richard A ^a   Ray, Barbara ^b  

^a OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b Hired Pen inc   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; ARTICLE; DEMOGRAPHY; EDUCATION; FEMALE; HUMAN; HUMAN DEVELOPMENT; INCOME; MALE; MARRIAGE; SOCIAL CHANGE; UNITED STATES;

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; EDUCATION; FEMALE; HUMAN DEVELOPMENT; HUMANS; INCOME; MALE; MARITAL STATUS; RESIDENCE CHARACTERISTICS; SOCIAL CHANGE; UNITED STATES; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 77952315872     PISSN: 10548289     EISSN: 15501558     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/foc.0.0044     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. See Hans-Peter Blossfeld and others, eds., Globalization, Uncertainty, and Youth in Society (New York: Routledge, 2005)
2. M. Corijn and Erik Klijzing, eds., Transitions to Adulthood in Europe (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001)
3. Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., ed., Early Adulthood in Cross-National Perspective, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (London: Sage, 2002)
4. Anne H. Gauthier, ed., Becoming a Young Adult: An International Perspective on the Transitions to Adulthood, European Journal of Population 23, nos. 3-4 (October 2007)
5. Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global (Washington: National Academies Press, 2005)
6. Richard A. Settersten Jr., Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., and Ruben G. Rumbaut, eds., On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Public Policy (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
7. For illustrations, see On Your Own without a Net: The Transition to Adulthood for Vulnerable Populations, edited by D. Wayne Osgood and others (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
8. Richard A. Settersten Jr., Passages to Adulthood, European Journal of Population 23, nos. 3-4: 251-72
9. Robert Frank, Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class (University of California Press, 2007).
10. Information about the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood can be found at: www.transad.pop.upenn.edu.
11. Rubén G. Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie, Young Adults in the United States: A Mid-Decade Profile (Philadelphia: MacArthur Network on Transitions to Adulthood, September 2007)
12. It is important to note, however, that the data source for the recent update differs from the continuous data source for the century-long view found in figures 1 and 2. The 2007 data point comes from the American Community Survey of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, available through the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), whereas the 1900-2000 data points come from the decennial Census, which is also available through IPUMS. Because the data sources are different, and because the leaps from 2000 to 2007 are in some cases rather large, we have not added the 2007 data point directly to the figure. Instead, we use the 2007 data source as a window into the contemporary context until the 2010 decennial Census data are available.
13. Rubén G. Rumbaut and Golnaz Komaie, Immigration and Adult Transitions, Future of Children 20, no. 1 (2010), pp. 43-66.
14. see also Sheldon Danziger and Cecelia Rouse, eds., The Price of Independence: The Economics of Early Adulthood (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007).
15. Frances K. Goldscheider and Calvin Goldscheider, Moving Out and Marriage: What Do Young Adults Expect? American Sociological Review 52 (April 1987): 278-85. Women in the 1930s also worked, largely to support their parents during the Depression and later to support the country in the war effort in the 1940s. With prosperity following the war, they would leave the workforce for homemaking. Their absence from the workforce in large numbers was once again a blip on the historical radar. Furthermore, African American women had always worked.
16. These early trends toward greater independence at the cusp of the twenties were similar for black men and women, with one exception. Black men and women were more often becoming parents (married or not).
17. For more information on this topic, see Michael Rosenthal, The Age of Independence: Interracial Unions, Same-Sex Unions, and the Changing American Family (Harvard University Press, 2007).
18. Lisa Barrow and Cecilia Rouse, Does College Still Pay? Economist's Voice 2, no. 4 (2005): 1-8.
19. National data show that between 85 and 93 percent of high school graduates plan to pursue college degrees, and all but 10 percent of them enroll in postsecondary education. See Charles Adelman, The Toolbox Revisited: Paths to Degree Completion from High School through College (Washington: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 2006)
20. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, The Condition of Education 2004, NCES 98-013 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004).
21. See also Barbara Schneider and David Stevenson, The Ambitious Generation (Yale University Press, 1999).
22. Dropouts are those who are not enrolled in school and who have not earned a high school diploma or equivalent credential, such as a GED.
23. See the National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics: 2007 (Washington: National Center for Education Statistics, 2008).Some dropouts will, of course, go on to receive a GED.
24. See Dan Bloom, Programs and Policies to Assist High School Dropouts in the Transition to Adulthood, Future of Children 20, no. 1 (2010): 89-108.
25. Fifty-eight percent of Hispanics, 55 percent of African Americans, and 51 percent of Native Americans graduate from high school. Gates Foundation, Diplomas Count (Seattle: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2008). The Gates method results in higher estimates.
26. Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz, and Ilyana Kuziemko, The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap, Journal of Economic Perspectives 20 (Fall 2006): 133-56. For women, gains in education were particularly dramatic in the final few decades of the past century. For example, the share of women completing college by age thirty-five quadrupled for those born between 1940 and 1975; for men, it rose by 50 percent.
27. Rumbaut and Komaie also emphasize that, for most adult transitions, the differences between native-born whites and blacks are often more narrow than the gap between Asians, on the upper end, and Hispanics, and especially Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, on the lower. This is especially true where educational attainment is concerned.
28. Sara Goldrick-Rab and Josipa Roksa, A Federal Agenda for Promoting Student Success and Degree Completion (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2008). Also, the methods of calculating dropout rates vary across studies, and therefore studies often arrive at slightly different figures.
29. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2001 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (Washington: NCES, 2002), table II.11.
30. See Thomas Brock, Young Adults and Higher Education: Barriers and Breakthroughs to Success, Future of Children 20, no. 1 (2010): 109-32.
31. The numbers are significantly underestimated because the tallies exclude those who are sent to prison. The reasons for the disparity between black and white young men are many, and include a very different set of advantages and blocked opportunities. While lack of education is a common obstacle for both white and black men who are struggling to get started in life, black men have the added burden of racism, greater social isolation in inner cities, and an all-too-tempting drug and gang trade that quickly fills the void of lost jobs.
32. For example, Becky Pettit and Bruce Western, Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration, American Sociological Review 69 (2004): 151-69.
33. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001, Special Report, August 2003, NCJ 197976 (www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/piusp01.pdf).
34. Heather C. West and William J. Sabol, Prison Inmates and Mid-Year 2008, Special Report, NCJ 225619, Department of Justice (Washington: Bureau of Justice Statistics, March 2009).
35. Of course, this difference also reflects the fact that education has also been inflated: a high school graduate was at a lower percentile in the educational distribution of the population in 2002 than in 1975.
36. Sheldon Danziger, Earnings by Education for Young Workers, 1975 and 2002, Data Brief 17 (Philadelphia: MacArthur Network on Transitions to Adulthood, November 2004).
37. In 2005, 14.9 percent of young adults aged eighteen to thirty-four were in poverty, by government standards. The national poverty rate in 2005 was 12.6 percent. Women were more likely than men to live in poverty (17.7 percent versus 12.1 percent).
38. Andrew Cherlin, American Marriage in the Early 21st Century, Future of Children 15, no. 2 (2005): 33-55.
39. See also Frank Furstenberg, On a New Schedule: Transitions to Adulthood and Family Change, Future of Children 20, no. 1 (2010): 67-87.
40. Suzanne Bianchi and Lynne Casper, American Families, Population Bulletin (December 2000).
41. Wendy Manning, Monica Longmore, and Peggy Giordano, The Changing Institution of Marriage: Adolescents' Expectations to Cohabit and Marry, Working Paper 2005-11 (Bowling Green, Ohio: Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University, 2005).
42. These plans vary slightly by religion (far fewer from more religious backgrounds plan to live together), and by education. Among women aged twenty-two to forty-four in 2002, roughly 69 percent with a high school degree or less had ever lived together compared with 46 percent among college-educated women.
43. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Fertility, Family Planning, and the Health of U.S. Women: Data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (Hyattsville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics, 2006).
44. Centers for Disease Control, Probability of First Marriage Disruption by Duration of Marriage and Wife's Age at Marriage, Advance Data 323 (Atlanta: CDC, May 31, 2001), table 3.
45. Adult children are financially supported by parents through their twenties. The network's study using 1988 data found that amounts drop off after age twenty-two, but even at age thirty, young adults received about $1,600 from their parents in the previous year. Data from the Youth Development Survey at the University of Minnesota also show that even at age twenty-nine to thirty, 13 percent of respondents received at least some economic support (covering living expenses) from their parents, a drop from 20 percent at age twenty-five to twenty-six, and 39 percent at age twenty-three to twenty-four (Jeylan Mortimer, personal communication). This general trend is echoed in new international evidence, which shows significant declines in economic self-sufficiency among youth in Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States from the mid-1980s through 2000
46. Peter Gosselin, Hire Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families (New York: Basic Books, 2009).
47. Jean Rhodes and Sarah Lowe, Mentoring in Adolescence, in Handbook of Adolescent Psychology, edited by Richard Lerner and Lawrence Steinberg (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley), 152-90.
48. Mark Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, American Journal of Sociology 78, no. 6 (1973): 1360-80.
49. See Constance Flanagan and Peter Levine, Civic Engagement and the Transition to Adulthood, Future of Children 20, no. 1 (2010): 159-79.
50. See also Constance Flanagan, Peter Levine, and Richard A. Settersten Jr., Civic Engagement and the Changing Transition to Adulthood, Working Paper (Boston: Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, 2009).
51. See Ryan Kelty, Meredith Kleykamp, and David Segal, The Military and the Transition to Adulthood, Future of Children 20, no. 1 (2010): 181-207.
52. Richard A. Settersten Jr., The New Landscape of Adult Life, Research in Human Development 4, nos. 3-4: 239-52.