Released May 5, 2009
URBANA, Ill. - The new life stage of "emerging adulthood" gives 20-somethings more time and leisure to find their soulmate and a career that's fulfilling--luxuries their grandparents certainly didn't have. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing, said Jeffrey Jensen Arnett at the 2009 spring lecture of The Pampered Chef® Family Resiliency Program at the University of Illinois.
In his view, emerging adulthood is an intense and exciting time of life, although it is not easy, and its evolution as a life stage is a positive development.
"Life is very different for 18- to 25-year-olds today than it was even 20 years ago. Delayed marriage and parenthood, more education, birth control, and acceptance of cohabitation for unmarried couples have made this life stage possible," he said.
"And today's emerging adults are extremely optimistic. When asked to respond to the statement: I'm very sure someday I'll get to where I want to be in life, 96 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds agreed," he said.
Arnett is a professor in the Psychology Department at Clark University and the author of Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties. His observations are based on 300 interviews with 18- to 29-year-olds of very diverse backgrounds.
According to the researcher, emerging adulthood is characterized by identity exploration, self-focus, instability (the average emerging adult changes jobs seven times from age 20 to 29 and a third say they've moved in the past year), a belief in limitless possibilities, and feeling in-between (I'm no longer an adolescent, they say, but I'm not an adult either).
Today's emerging adults are also immersed in media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and are globally aware, with study abroad increasingly common among those who attend college--and 60 percent of this age group have at least some college credits under their belts.
Although there are a lot of negative stereotypes about the emerging adult years, most people in this demographic are working very hard, said the researcher.
"Because they're independent from their parents and don't yet have responsibilities to others, they have the fewest number of obligations they will ever have in life. And people in this age group are self-focused in a good way. They're building up knowledge and adding skills that will help them later in life," he said.
What do emerging adults see as the top criteria for having achieved adulthood?
1. I accept responsibility for myself.
2. I make independent decisions.
3. I'm financially independent.
These are all gradual transitions, Arnett noted.
Which criteria did emerging adults list last as being important signifiers of adulthood?
1. I've finished my education. (Many Americans now go back to school at some point in their life, and nontraditional students are common.)
2. I'm married. (For anthropologists, this has traditionally been the beginning of adulthood.)
3. I'm a parent. (Most people now wait to become parents until they believe they've reached adulthood, and that can take a while.)
He noted that education matters more than it ever has because the high-paying manufacturing jobs of a generation ago don't exist any longer. Even so, the characteristics of emerging adulthood appear across all social classes, he said.
"So is it better to grow up later? Well, respectfully, I ask, what's the hurry? With time and maturity, the chances of finding a good fit in a life partner and a satisfying career get better and better. This stage is here to stay, and most people will benefit from it, I think," he said.
The lecture was sponsored by The Pampered Chef® Family Resiliency Program, a partnership between The Pampered Chef® and the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois. Doris Kelley Christopher, a University of Illinois alum, is the founder and chairman of The Pampered Chef®, the largest direct seller of high-quality kitchen tools and part of the Berkshire-Hathaway family of businesses.
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http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/stories/news4777.html
Contacts: Barbara Fiese, (217) 333-9077, bhfiese@illinois.edu
Phyllis Picklesimer, 217-244-2827, p-pickle@uiuc.edu
