Content uploaded by Frank F Furstenberg
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Frank F Furstenberg on Feb 22, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
(over)
October 2004, Issue 1
On the Frontier of Adulthood:
Emerging Themes and New Directions
Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., Rubén G. Rumbaut, and Richard A. Settersten, Jr.
Ages 18 and 21 are milestones in a young person’s life. In the eyes of the law and society, they have crossed the
threshold of adulthood. In reality, however, by age 21, few young people today would actually be considered “adult”
based on the traditional markers—leaving home, finishing school, starting a job, getting married, and having
children. More youth are extending education, living at home longer, and moving haltingly, or stopping altogether,
along the stepping stones of adulthood. A new period of life is emerging in which young people are no longer
adolescents but not yet adults. Yet, are today’s youth truly disinterested in moving into adulthood, or is it that
changes in the world around them have altered the very contour and content of early adult life?
A multidisciplinary team of scholars, brought together by the Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and
Public Policy, and funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is exploring these and other
questions with arguably the best secondary data sources available. The results are compiled in the book On the
Frontier of Adulthood to be published by the University of Chicago Press in late 2004.
Although pinpointing the onset of adulthood is not easy, it is most certainly not the magic age of 18 or 21 that is
most often used to define adulthood in social policies and the law. Today, the authors find, entry into adulthood is
longer, more ambiguous, and generally occurs in a more complex and less uniform fashion than in the past. Young
people, however, are not necessarily unwilling to take on adult roles. If anything, the opposite is occurring, as young
people now seem more aware of what it takes to be autonomous and are disinclined to take on commitments they
cannot honor.
An Emerging Stage of Life
The idea of adolescence as a distinct period of life emerged in the early twentieth century as major cultural and
economic shifts took hold. Schooling became more universal, and the economic base moved from agriculture to
industry, leaving teens no longer as readily suited to employment as in prior generations. Just as then, we are now
witnessing cultural and economic shifts that are forcing youth to adapt in new ways.
The end of the plentiful industrial jobs, which in the postwar years allowed youth to move quickly from a parental
home to adult independence, ushered in a new era for youth on the cusp of adulthood. Education and training
quickly became necessary prerequisites to jobs in the current information-driven economy, where jobs are less
permanent and careers more fluid. Although teens continue to work, a shrinking fraction enters full-time work
before their early 20s, often cycling between work and school or simultaneously combining the two.
Interestingly, in certain respects, adult transitions today resemble some of the features of the era prior to
industrialization, when most families earned a living from the land. Then, children often worked on family farms
into early adulthood, when they would inherit the land themselves. Attaining self-sufficiency was a gradual process,
as it is today. One difference, however, is that today, early adulthood is shaped much more by social institutions
outside the family, particularly higher education.
Four-year residential colleges and universities are the best example of a full-fledged social institution that shapes the
lives of young adults. In a certain sense, they are virtual total institutions that provide shelter, directed activities,
adult and peer support, health care, and entertainment. They are explicitly designed to bridge the family and the
wider society and increasingly have been tailored to provide the sort of semi-autonomy that characterizes early
adulthood. Military training, too, shares many of these characteristics.
More Choices, More Complexity
Pathways into adulthood have grown more varied and complex. Once, youth moved nearly in lockstep through the
stages that mark adulthood. Now, they alternate or simultaneously pursue education and work, cycle between
periods living at home and living independently, and delay marriage and parenting. Women, especially, have seen
their options broaden. As a result, fewer young people at age 22, much less someone in their teens, know what they
are going to do in the next 10 years than they did even a few decades ago.
This more ambiguous and extended path often finds youth extending their dependence on parents, creating a greater
financial burden for many families. As Schoeni and Ross show in their chapter, parents provide, on average,
$38,000 in material assistance for their child, or about $2,200 for every year between ages 18 and 34—considerably
more than in the past. Clearly, not all families can afford to provide this level of support, and several authors attest
to the fact that inequities matter not only when children are little, but when they are grown as well, with advantages
and disadvantages accumulating over time.
Policy Implications
Public awareness and social policies have not yet caught up to the changes described in the book. Many features of
American society operate on the assumption that reaching adulthood occurs much earlier than it ordinarily does
today. Health insurance is but one example. An awkward gap exists from the late teens through the 20s when many
young people have yet to become employed full-time, requiring families to pick up the slack.
How then might outdated policies be rewoven to smooth entry into adult life? A first step is to rethink traditional
arrangements that penalize individuals for cycling between work and school, or who pursue both simultaneously.
We must develop more open and coherent education and training programs that can also permit lifelong learning,
and that better connect and actively combine education and work experiences.
Community colleges can be key institutions for new interventions, but financial, social, work, and psychological
services must be bolstered to match those provided in four-year colleges. Workplaces, too, must be restructured in
ways that allow workers to better balance work, education, and family. Paid training, flextime, family and medical
leave, part-time parity in wages are but a few examples. The family clearly remains the primary institution that
absorbs the costs of investment in the next generation. Given that not all families can afford these sizable outlays,
better safety nets are needed for young people. This is especially true for those in foster care, juvenile justice, and
special education systems. Most supports for these youth currently end at age 18, which is simply too early to stop
investing in these young people when their more advantaged peers continue to receive sizable assistance from their
families of origin. The costs of these supports do not come cheaply. However, the costs must be considered against
the recognition that insufficient investment up front will come at huge psychological, social, and economic costs in
the long run.
Based on Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., Rubén G. Rumbaut and Richard A. Settersten, Jr.,“On the Frontier of
Adulthood: Emerging Themes and New Directions,” in On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Public
Policy. Edited by Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., and Rubén G. Rumbaut. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, forthcoming 2004.
Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology and Research Associate in the
Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Rubén G. Rumbaut is Professor of Sociology and co-
Director of the Center for Research on Immigration, Population and Public Policy at the University of California,
Irvin. Richard A. Settersten, Jr., is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Case Western Reserve University.
