Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone

by Settersten, Richard; Ray, Barbara E.

  Although a case could be made for investing in many emerging programs, we highlight a handful that we think should top the list. The first group is national service programs, such as the Service and Conservation Corps, which operates in forty-one states and the District of Columbia. Like the earlier Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) created during the New Deal, the Service and Conservation Corps builds and improves the nation’s infrastructure by renovating public housing, conserving its public lands, and restoring its environment by creating and staffing public parks.

  AmeriCorps is another excellent example. It combines community service with opportunities to develop life skills and a stipend to help pay for college. Indications from early analysis by the Network are that it effectively incorporates young people into the body politic. Some participants, for example, gained experience by taking charge and leading a team. Those from working-class families (earning under $40,000 a year) reported that they learned new ways of thinking from others. Participants learned to manage time under pressure, and became more realistic about their personal and professional skills.

  The new Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (PL 111-13) increases the numbers of slots in AmeriCorps programs by adding several new corps and fellowships. In addition, the act increases the education award of these programs, adds flexibility in how young people can both get engaged in service and balance other responsibilities, targets the needs of low-income communities, and prioritizes the inclusion of marginalized youth.10 It also creates tax incentives for employers who allow employees to take paid leave for full-time service, among other innovations.

  Programs such as Youth Build, Youth Corps, and Civic Justice Corps all deserve more attention. A year spent doing national or community service is particularly helpful for young people who are still trying to figure out what they want to do after high school or while they are in college. The same is true after college, as young people are contemplating next steps. And, though they are highly selective, programs such as the Peace Corps and Teach for America offer important opportunities within which to explore one’s self and career choices. These programs, along with the suggestions for enhanced work supports and more solid paths from school to work, are also examples of the potential to create an infrastructure that is currently lacking for this extended transition period.

  All Ducks Are Not Created Equally

  The final capstone in young people’s lives today is marriage and family. No longer are most young people setting out on life’s path together as a couple, sharing accomplishments and milestones. Today, they are getting their ducks in a row first, and then marrying—if they marry at all. This decision to delay marriage has distinct advantages, as well as some often overlooked consequences.

  Getting one’s ducks in a row before settling into marriage and family may lead to stronger relationships. After all, older people know themselves better—they are familiar with their needs and desires, their strengths and limits, what they most need in a partner. Young people who delay marriage until their late twenties or early thirties are also more mature, and are better equipped as spouses or parents to handle life’s ups and downs. And they are farther along in education and work, which adds a semblance of security to relationships and eases the strains of skimpy finances. Young adults who delay marriage have also played the field, which conceivably helps them choose a better match for themselves. These are all good things. Experiencing “me-ness” early on seems helpful in so many ways.

  It is particularly important for women to get their ducks in a row before marriage. Even in modern relationships, women continue to shoulder the majority of the responsibilities for child care, and their jobs and careers continue to take a hit as they cycle in and out of work in response to family demands. The toll for women is even more considerable since they now have higher educational attainment than men. Perhaps nowhere are their losses more apparent than in the face of divorce, as women struggle to reclaim their financial independence after having been detached from the labor market.

  Yet it may not be necessary to have it all figured out before getting married. Creating such a separate life before marriage comes with decided downsides. Couples may have fewer experiences in common. They may be more set in their ways. They may be pickier about possible partners, making it difficult to find someone who meets the long list of qualifications. Although some “me-ness” time up front is good, too much of it for too long can also compromise the possibility of “we-ness” with a committed partner or spouse.

  We are not suggesting that everyone rush out of the gates to get married at age twenty-one. To the contrary, the research is clear: Waiting to marry and have children until after college or training is a key to stronger marriages and more promising futures. Nothing cements diverging destinies, and forecloses futures, like early marriages and, especially, early childbirth. The other factors are less critical. Buying a home, being debt-free, finding the perfect job—none is as imperative to accomplish before marriage as education.

  One critical consequence of delaying marriage too long is a larger, demographic worry. The longer couples delay marriage, the fewer children they have. The population risks graying as people live longer and the birthrate dips lower. Every generation must replace itself with equal or higher numbers or there will not be enough workers to support retirees. Many European countries are currently facing this dilemma. The United States has managed to largely sidestep the issue until now because our immigration rates are so high. The percentages of people who significantly delay marriage, never marry, or remain intentionally childless are higher now than at any other time in American history. The time is nearing when we must face the ramifications of this important trend.

  Of course, there are also very real biological clocks for women’s fertility, despite the fact that new reproductive technologies have made later fertility possible. Although most view the biological imperative as the sole domain of women, the clock is ticking for men as well. Men may envision themselves working hard, getting set in a career, and then marrying and starting a family. Long hours are spent at the office early in a career in return for the assurance of earnings and a comfortable retirement down the road. If men wait to have children into their late thirties or early forties, however, their retirement is going to look very different from what they imagined. Having children at age forty means their children will graduate high school at about the same time fathers expect to retire. College bills have a funny way of cutting into retirement savings.

  Holding off on marriage, and particularly on having children, until after age twenty-five, is the soundest plan for this day and age. This is not a revolutionary message for college-educated parents who have emphasized the importance of getting education first, or to our swimmers, who usually make these choices. Children can and will continue to be a primary source of personal meaning and salvation. But moving too quickly means that the door to education and careers will become ever harder to keep open. Some argue that those who have children early do so because they realize their futures are not very bright regardless. It is hard to say whether this is true or a rationalization young people make after the fact. But one thing is clear: Doing so seriously reduces one’s life chances.

  Although most young adults are delaying marriage, they are not delaying relationships or even living together. Dating and romance may look different today, but they are not obsolete. What is different today from past generations is the growing acceptability of living together. We see a decided split here in the trajectories of these relationships, however. Our swimmers see living together as a test run for marriage, while treaders see living together as a temporary arrangement, instigated by children or for financial reasons.

  Cohabitation is very unstable in the United States, and unstable relationships are hard on children. Instability, however, is not a problem unique to cohabitation—it is also true of marriage. When the relationship is stable and committed, as well as unburdened by significant conflict or tension, living
together can be a beneficial arrangement. It is stability that matters most, especially when children are involved.

  Of course, there are those who will argue that it is marriage itself that matters most; that marriage is the glue that holds together the most fragile of relationships. But the group that moves quickly to marriage is also composed of those who are already on shaky ground. Their relationships and marriages are unstable for the same reasons they are vulnerable in other domains: They have less education, fewer resources, and fewer skills. For these young people, even solutions like mandatory marriage preparation or counseling are unlikely to be effective.

  Given the rapid rise in cohabitation and its growing acceptability, we might consider adopting a model more typical in European countries, which takes the stigma out of cohabitation and treats it as a relationship that confers the same legal rights and responsibilities as marriage. This approach provides a set of civic protections aimed at strengthening long-term, committed relationships.

  Is It All Bad?

  So much media attention and public debate starts from the assumption that there’s something amiss with young people today, that delays in the transition to adulthood are the beginning of the end for families and society. These changes do bring significant challenges and consequences for those who are treading, but there are also some great things about how this period of life is being shaken up. The rigid three-box life of education–work–retirement that men born in the first half of the last century marched through in lockstep is crumbling. New flexibilities expand opportunities and choices for life’s path, which can be liberating. Likewise, the strings that tied mother’s aprons tightly around their waists have been undone, allowing more choices and freedoms for women. Educational attainment has grown dramatically, and a college education is within reach for more youth. The social scripts that once signaled a single “right” time and order for all of life’s transitions have all but disappeared.

  As one young man from Michigan says, “I don’t think there is one order that is going to work for everybody.” That stereotype, he says, “puts pressure on people and makes people feel like if I don’t do it this way that I’ve done it wrong.” Or as this New Yorker put it: “It’s hard living up to the expectations of being an adult. You should have a good job. You should have your own place. Should have a family.” When those do not happen in that order, he says, people are quick to judge. “It’s ‘What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you if you don’t have a good job. What’s wrong with you if you don’t have a family.’ ” When the scripts are less set, the weight of expectations is lighter.

  What do American parents and the public really want for young people? We surely don’t want to turn back the clocks. At the end of the day, maybe what we really want is to be assured that young people will ultimately make it on their own—for their own welfare and that of our families and nation. And here, the news seems good: Most are pushing toward adulthood. They are seeking responsibility, negotiating autonomy, making commitments in education and work, nurturing connections with other people, finding ways to be involved in their communities, and expressing concern about the world around them.

  But let’s not forget the big ifs. As inequality continues to widen in our country, and as we still cling to independence and autonomy as a sign of success, the risks grow ever larger for growing numbers of youth whose families cannot offer, or lack access to, the kinds of supports that are necessary in this new era, supports that allow young people to swim rather than to tread furiously or even sink. Families cannot shoulder the burden completely. While some things about these years seem positive—young people have more time to figure out what they want to do in a job, more time to develop intimate relationships, more time to gain a sense of identity—the big picture is one of serious treading for many young Americans. This picture is remarkably absent in media portrayals and public views, where the focus is almost exclusively on young people with ample resources who are using these years to actively explore rather than those who are on their own without a net.

  As we suggested at the beginning of this chapter, perhaps the best model for young people as they embark on the path to adulthood is no longer one of independence, but of interdependence. Going it alone may have worked in the past, but in today’s highly competitive, highly interconnected, increasingly unequal, and longer life, it behooves young people to forge connections at every step of the way.

  Young people need institutions and supports that foster responsibility and hope, that help them set goals and build the skills they need as adults in a fast-moving and fast-changing world. These will ease pressure on parents, particularly for those families that are unable to extend help because their resources are already stretched to the breaking point or because they simply don’t have the knowledge and skills to help their children move forward in productive ways.

  The changes underfoot in our society and the resulting need for better scaffolding as young people make their way into adulthood are sure to prompt intense political and public debate. But one thing is clear: The great shake-ups that are going on in the early adult years, as well as in other stages of life, are transforming American life, and their reverberations will be felt by everyone. These changes will demand new responses from families, governments, and society. Expecting young people to be “adult” by age eighteen or twenty-one, or even twenty-five, is no longer feasible, or even desirable. The status quo simply will not and cannot fit the world today and tomorrow, for there is now a new and extended period of life before us—one in which young people are no longer adolescents, but not quite adults.

  Acknowledgments

  This book could not have been written without the contributions and support of many individuals and organizations. The foundation of this book has been built from nearly a decade of research conducted or commissioned by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Public Policy. It is therefore fitting to first acknowledge, with enormous gratitude, the MacArthur Foundation for its generous funding of the Network and its activities. At MacArthur, we are indebted to the staff members whose stewardship shaped the Network’s vision and activities: Idy Gitelson and Craig Wacker, former and current program officers; Connie Yowell, director of education; and Julie Stasch, vice president of human and community development.

  What an amazing experience it has been to share ten years of our professional careers and personal lives together as Network members. We have learned so much from our mentors, colleagues, and friends: Frank Furstenberg, chair (University of Pennsylvania), Gordon Berlin (MDRC), Sheldon Danziger (University of Michigan), Connie Flanagan (Pennsylvania State University), Vonnie McLoyd (University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill), Wayne Osgood (Pennsylvania State University), Jean Rhodes (University of Massachusetts–Boston), Rubén Rumbaut (University of California–Irvine), Cecilia Rouse (Princeton University), and Mary Waters (Harvard University). We are also deeply grateful to Patricia Miller, Network administrator, for all she has done to nurture the promise and progress of the Network’s activities.

  Many of the Network’s projects have also been conducted in collaboration with an extraordinary group of associate members. Our work has also benefited from their hard work and insights: Tom Brock (MDRC), Pat Carr (Rutgers University), Colleen Dillon (University of Washington), Mike Foster (University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill), Beth Fussell (Washington State University), Doug Hartmann (University of Minnesota), Jennifer Holdaway (Social Science Research Council), Maria Kefalas (St. Joseph’s University), and Teresa Swartz (University of Minnesota).

  In our decade together, the Network has commissioned some of the nation’s best scholars to conduct research to inform particular topics and questions of interest. These efforts have culminated in the books On the Frontier of Adulthood (edited by Richard Settersten, Frank Furstenberg, and Rubén Rumbaut, University of Chicago Press), On Your Own Without a Net (edited by D. Wayne Osgood, E. Michael Foster, Conn
ie Flanagan, and Gretchen Ruth, University of Chicago Press), and The Price of Independence (edited by Sheldon Danziger and Cecilia Rouse, Russell Sage Foundation). Together, these three books represent the scientific efforts of nearly ninety researchers across a wide variety of disciplines and fields. The story lines of our chapters are often anchored in their exceptional work. To all of you, we offer our heartfelt appreciation.

  As we wrote this book, we also conducted fresh analyses and interviews to further expand and strengthen the storylines that emerged from the Network’s projects. Many of these interviews were with professionals whose expertise was indispensable in interpreting, supplementing, or otherwise bringing to life some of our findings. We are grateful for their help. These individuals include Elizabeth Armstrong (Indiana University), Fran Goldscheider (University of Maryland), Rob Ivry (MDRC), Joe Kahne (Mills College), Kim McAlexander (Oregon State University), Michelle Sandlin (Oregon State University), Robert Schoeni (University of Michigan), Dan Schwab (Oregon State University), David Shulenburger (Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities), Tom Watson (CauseWired Communications), and Kris Winter (Oregon State University).