16-5 What is emerging adulthood?

In the Western world, adolescence now roughly corresponds to the teen years. At earlier times, and in other parts of the world today, this slice of life has been much smaller (Baumeister & Tice, 1986). Shortly after sexual maturity, young people would assume adult responsibilities and status. The event might be celebrated with an elaborate initiation—a public rite of passage. The new adult would then work, marry, and have children.

When schooling became compulsory in many Western countries, independence was put on hold until after graduation. From Europe to Australia, adolescents now take more time to establish themselves as adults. In the United States, for example, the average age at first marriage has increased more than 5 years since 1960, to 29 for men, and 27 for women. In 1960, three in four women and two in three men had, by age 30, finished school, left home, become financially independent, married, and had a child. Today, fewer than half of 30-year-old women and one-third of men have met these five milestones (Henig, 2010).

Together, later independence and earlier sexual maturity have widened the once-brief interlude between biological maturity and social independence (FIGURE 16.3). In prosperous communities, the time from 18 to the mid-twenties is an increasingly not-yet-settled phase of life, now often called emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2006, 2007; Reitzle, 2006). No longer adolescents, these emerging adults, having not yet assumed full adult responsibilities and independence, feel “in between.” After high school, those who enter the job market or go to college may be managing their own time and priorities more than ever before. Yet they may be doing so from their parents’ home—unable to afford their own place and perhaps still emotionally dependent as well. Recognizing today’s more gradually emerging adulthood, the U.S. government now allows dependent children up to age 26 to remain on their parents’ health insurance (Cohen, 2010).

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