Study: Americans taking longer to grow up

[Ed Barrow]

Source: New York Times

Baby boomers have long been considered the generation that did not want to grow up, perpetual adolescents even as they become eligible for Social Security. Now, a growing body of research shows that the real Peter Pans are not the boomers, but the generations that have followed. For many, by choice or circumstance, independence no longer begins at 21.

From the Obama administration’s new rule that allows children up to age 26 to remain on their parents’ health insurance to the large increase in the number of women older than 35 who have become first-time mothers, social scientists say young adulthood has undergone a profound shift.

People between 20 and 34 are taking longer to finish their educations, establish themselves in careers, marry, have children and become financially independent, said Frank F. Furstenberg, who leads the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood, a team of scholars who have been studying this transformation.

“A new period of life is emerging in which young people are no longer adolescents but not yet adults,” Furstenberg said.


Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/343D8E8541F2885B862577410002D006?OpenDocument

[adnelson60087]

1. I wonder how long it will take before someone blames this on us teachers?

If only we still lived in a time when 15y/o's worked in farms, factories, or married to have lots of kids.

[Fearless]

6. +1 Lol!

[catnhatnh]

8. 15???

At 14 I worked summers as a full time deckhand on an oyster boat. I blame the shift on opportunity, not a generation. At 14 it was not my first job but now at 25 what ever you can get MAY be...

[bluestateguy]

9. Parents share most of the blame here

nt

[EFerrari]

13. Wages have been flat for 35 years and PARENTS are to blame?

I think not.

And the only thing the nuclear family unit is really good for is to sell to. If your parents and you and your kids share a refrigerator, GE CEOs might have to take a bonus cut.

[CreekDog]

14. why is there blame? taking longer to become a mother is not a "bad" thing

who cares that certain rites of passage are occurring later?

maybe you should not judge people who don't meet your arbitrary standard of what's "grown up".

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. And hopefully it will lead to taking longer

to consider being a parent at all.

[mopinko]

24. what makes you so sure it is a bad thing?

the thing that makes the human brain so amazingly powerful is that evolution has given in 20 years to grow up, to get wired and crosswired. maybe 5 or 10 more and we will stop being such animals. maybe we will evolve beyond being territorial, murdering cutthroats. maybe nationalism will die. maybe peace will break out. maybe we will be prepared to co-exist, finally.

[Tunkamerica]

28. blame?

all of those markers of adulthood are social constructs. Previous generations grew up too quickly. Were their parents to blame for that?

[smirkymonkey]

42. +100

Maybe we are just the generations that have questioned the materialistic, consumeristic ways of life that our forebears felt were the only way to be considered "grown up". Sometimes rebellion isn't just about immaturity, it's about trying to survive in a "social construct" that you have outgrown as peer group.

[sandnsea]

2. Good.

And I wouldn't say that someone has to be married or have a child to be an adult.

Finishing an education and establishing a career first, seem more adult than what most of us did.

[Jennicut]

3. Well, I moved out at 24, and got married at 25. Had my kids at 28 and 29.

So at 34 I am a bit behind my parents but not THAT behind. They got married at 22.

[DJ13]

4. The decline in opportunities to find good paying jobs

....is to a great extent responsible.

Back when I left home in the 70's even working in a gas station (full service) paid enough to live a decent life.

Todays youth dont have that, most jobs they can get out of high school are minimum wage, which has declined in living standards relative to inflation so much theres little chance to be independent.

[sakabatou]

5. And for those of us who are disabled...?

[catnhatnh]

10. What are you asking? N/T

[sakabatou]

26. Nothing. It's a rhetorical question

[Alcibiades]

7. This is bullshit

Most of the young people I know are not married, but they have jobs and their own apartments. Most of those young people taking longer to finish their educations are the ones getting advanced degrees, which is what will enable them to marry, buy a home, and have kids. The fact that more folks are doing this ought not be something we lament.

Ooooh, every now and then, there's a "failure to launch." Historically, the real aberration has been the idea that folks would move away from family and the web of interdependency that entails. If you go to any small farming community and look at the networks of houses people have built on family land, you get some idea of how most Americans used to actually live.

[bluestateguy]

11. OK, but life expectancy is longer now

and with it, retirement ages are later than they used to be. The whole lifespan curve is longer than it used to be.

If adolescence lasts until 30 for some people, then retirement takes place at 70 and death at 80-85.

[izquierdista]

15. Try "until your job is outsourced at 47"

When retirement takes place, that is.

[EFerrari]

12. So, who paid for this study?

[DeSwiss]

16. I disagree with the assumptions.

Also from the article:

National surveys reveal that an overwhelming majority of Americans, including younger adults, agree that between 20 and 22, people should be finished with school, working and living on their own. But in practice many people in their 20s and early 30s have not yet reached these traditional milestones.

Should be finished? Who set the ages at between 20 and 22? Why is this age range better than any others? What intervening variables within society are involved in such outcomes now as to compared to say, 20, 50, 80 years ago? More education than parents? Lack of job opportunities that pay a living wage? More mobile society with fewer interpersonal connections in places where they work as opposed to where they grew up and where close ties were first formed? Marriage losing its status as a desirable end-point in one's life?

At best this so-called "study" raises interesting questions, but I don't think it answers very many. But still, I'll K&R.

[TroglodyteScholar]

17. I am 30 years old...

...financially independent since my first job a few months out of college. But there are a number of ways in which I refuse to "grow up."
I still gaze in wonder at a spider making its web. I still play my original NES. I still love learning new things. I still snicker at the word 'duty.'

In my mind, the traditional definition of growing up basically involves 1) dressing uncomfortably, 2) caring only about money, and 3) just generally taking yourself too damn seriously. Not about to happen to this kidult.

[catnhatnh]

20. I like that....

...a lot.

[ProgressiveVictory]

18. this will cost us a lot of money

[happyslug]

19. So more evidence that pre-1900 social structure was normal and the Post WWIi social structure was NO...

One of the stats the US Census bureau finds every ten years is age of first marriage. Around 1900 it was about 26 for men 22 for women. That age DROPPED till the 1970 census (Falling to about 22 for men, 20 for women). Since the 1970 Census it has increased, equally the ages in 1900 about 1990 (for men, for women it was 1980), it has increased since that date.

I bring this up for the above is a clear state that shows we are returning to the Social Structure of 1900, instead of the idealized social structure of the 1950s. Back then it was common for multiple generations to live together (And it is common is much of the old Warsaw Pact Nations and the Third world). It seems to be the norm throughout most of history, even when the nuclear family was considered the ideal situation. Just comments that this change may NOT reflect the fact people need more time to set up their own households, but that such independent households are no longer viable, just like such independent households was NOT viable in 1900. We are now an urban population, not majority rural population we were in 1900, but it looks like we are returning to extended families as more then a social support group, we are reverting to extended families as part of the economic needs of young families. i.e. people in their 20s can NOT afford to buy a house, buy a car AND raise young children WITHOUT direct support from other relatives. That is why people lived with their parents while into their 20s around 1900, and why it appears we are returning to such a situation today.

US Census data:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam.html#ht

[Johonny]

39. I agree

[peace13]

21. Frog with no ears can't jump!

I know many young people with college educations that can not find a job that will allow them to move out and pay their school loans. The people in their mid twenties have seen experience needed to apply for jobs jump from three to five years and it keeps climbing. Some of these young people will never have enough experience to move on with their careers. Very sad.

[readmoreoften]

22. How can you grow up when you can't get a job that pays more than a malt shop waitress?

When you make $8.25 an hour working at Starbucks and you have $400 a month student loan payments? You go to graduate school in hopes of making $13 an hour at a desk job. (Sometimes it even pays off. Other times, it's back to Starbucks for you.)

[Quantess]

25. Life isn't as simple as it used to be.

My mother says that life is more complicated these days, and I believe her.

[carlyhippy]

27. no job placement after grad, large student loans due, hmm I wonder why kids live with parents

:sarcasm:

I myself don't care if my kids move back in or not after grad. No hurry for marriage, kids, a mortgage. Today's young people are at least waiting til later on to get married, 40 years ago people were getting married at 16 years old and having kids young. But, back then one didn't need a college degree to get a decent job.

[Tunkamerica]

29. Study: Americans now taking correct amount of time to grow up. Previous generations

did not take enough time. Parents/teachers/diet to blame.

[morningglory]

30. We had a family reunion this past Saturday. Oil gusher on our

minds. I come from a long line of fishermen and shrimpers on the Gulf Coast. Loooong line. My 71 year old brother said more than 60 years ago when there was practically no law here ( I am not proud of all this, just relaying a story )a party-boat full of tourists went out into the Gulf Stream for a day of fishing. By the time they got out there, there was no land visible. During the day the captain and mate passed out drunk. All the deck hands were children. The tourists realized they were completely lost, sunburned, tired and did not know the way back to "the hill", as the old salts call it. Our neighbor was 12 years old. He took the wheel and went straight to the pass, navigated the pass(not easy) and docked the big boat, which requires some technical skill and a child deck hand skilled enough to lasso the pylon. Just sayin'...

[snooper2]

31. It's the lazy stupid....people don't appreciate hard work anymore

nt

[seabeyond]

32. i have seen this in so many ways. i contribute in some areas with my kids, on the one hand

but on the other hand, being aware of this in our society (collective conscious) i work to get off hip.

i cant tell you the number of kids that are not getting their drivers license at 16. so many kids waiting. to me, that is the ultimate in putting off the independence. i dont get it. i loved the freedom at 16. it was so good for me, in so many ways. i had a kid in car yesterday. asked age. 15. no interest in getting license. we chatted about it then i reinforced with my son the value of having license, car and responsibility and independence at 16.

last day of his freshman year i told him i want him to gain more and more autonomy so by the time he graduated high school, he was totally independent to live on his own and take care of himself responsibly, in all ways.

something we are aware of and discuss in this house. using other kids and situations and choices as talking points.

[NNN0LHI]

33. I have a nephew who didn't get his college degree until he was nearly 40

Then he ended up getting a job that didn't require a college education.

Don

[SOS]

34. "Peter Pan" "Grow Up"... "Baloney"

The worst job prospects for young people since the Great Depression.
And it's their fault, because they are bunch of Peter Pans.
What a load of BS.

If a young person with a degree, or a union job, could make $50K they would "grow up" in about two minutes.

Remember folks, it's never the fault of the oligarchs who shafted this country.
It's those darned immature kids!

[WolverineDG]

35. That's what happens when you treat kids like babies

I've seen it time & again--parents & society in general treating those under 18 as if they are completely incapable of doing anything for themselves.

dg

[dionysus]

38. ding ding ding

[redqueen]

36. lol @ "social scientists"

That's funny.

[End Of The Road]

37. It was easier to become financially independent in the post-WWII years

The U.S. experienced a huge economic boom after WWII, and young people (white young people, mostly) could find good jobs with benefits with or without a college degree.

Prior to that, it wasn't uncommon for adult children to be living with their parents until they were in their 30s.

The post-WWII boom is over, and we're back to some "old-fashioned" realities.

[WolverineDG]

43. Young people were also taught how to take care of themselves

these days, Mommy & Daddy follow Junior around doing things for him, including taking care of problems at college. God forbid a child learn how to cook or clean up after himself! That's child abuse!

dg

[nolabear]

40. This isn't necessarily bad; it's just different.

We live longer, are healthier longer, have kids later, retire later, and perhaps the nuclear family can be a support system for us longer. Dependence and independence aren't the only two options. If the family works well, i.e. the kids aren't hanging out being dependent but are getting an education and contributing more as the parents age, if grandchildren get the benefit of close association with grandparents and aunts and uncles, etc., you get interdependence, which can benefit everyone.

[ZombieNixon]

41. How is this the fault of the people involved?

This "study" comes out at a time when the economy sucks and college grads (an pretty much anyone else as well) have a hell of a time finding a job. Most of them don't pay enough to allow financial independence, so of course young people are staying at home and putting off higher education. Costs have outstripped wages since the 1970s. Of course it's taking longer for young people to get independent. It's not because anyone under 35 has Peter Pan Syndrome.

I'm 23. I currently want nothing more than to get a decent job, move away from home, and get on with my Master's. That's taking a really long time to happen, and it's not because I "don't wanna grow up." Jesus fuck, who does these studies? :eyes: