“Guiding My Success”

This chapter seeks to bridge the disconnect between those who study the development of emerging adults and those who work with them in the context of higher education. It provides an overview of the developmental research on emerging adults and focuses on how to leverage their development for success. It examines closely how the traits of emerging adults (self-focus, instability, identity explorations, feeling in-between, and a sense of possibilities) can be viewed as strengths and provide an opportunity to successfully transition into adult roles. The chapter emphasizes taking a long view when educating students and explains the importance of doing so. Finally, next steps and recommendations are articulated in hopes of fostering a holistic view of supporting students.

“When did I Stop being a Child?” The Subjective Feeling of Adulthood of Mexican and Central American Unaccompanied 1.25 Generation Immigrants

Employing narrative inquiry, this paper examines how 30 Mexican and Central American young adults (ages 21 to 34) who immigrated without a parent as teenagers—the unaccompanied 1.25 generation— experienced the subjective feeling of adulthood. Structural realities pushed the unaccompanied 1.25 generation into early adult roles, independence, and social responsibility. In many cases, attainment of “adult” roles, independence, and even social responsibility was not followed by the subjective feeling of adulthood. Instead, the feeling of adulthood emerged in gendered ways, was gradual, and resulted from seeing themselves as competent, mature, and capable of thoughtful decision-making. Moreover, in some cases, traumatic events led some to early identification with adult status or disrupted their identification with adulthood. Their experiences support the idea that becoming an adult is an internal process, and raises questions on how independence and social responsibility are experienced by marginalized youth and incorporated into their sense of adulthood.

‘Forced adulthood’: An aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young English and Assamese adults

Quarterlife crisis’ describes difficulties experienced by young people in their transition to adulthood. Little is known about how this crisis manifests in different cultural contexts or the impact of educational background. Using photo-elicitation and timeline interviews, we explore the lived experience of ‘quarterlife crisis’ among 22-30 year olds from England (n=16) and Assam, India (n=8), each group including people with and people without a university-level education. Data were analysed with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. We report the key theme of ‘forced adulthood’, consisting of the traumatising experience of having to assume adult roles and responsibilities before one feels capable of so doing. We explore how cultural and educational factors shape this experience though: feeling rushed to financial self-sufficiency; having to train oneself to be an adult; and having to be the ‘man of the house’. In conclusion, we demonstrate that, even though there is some consistency around the traumatising effect of too early an assumption of adult responsibility, culture and educational background can change the contours of this experience and its meaning.

Mothers’ Out-of-Sequence Postsecondary Education and Their Health and Health Behaviors

Ample research suggests that the links between higher education and heath are robust and growing in strength. This research, however, tends to assume education was completed prior to assuming other adult roles. Importantly, the life course framework raises the question of whether “out-of-sequence” college completion conveys similar health returns. I investigate this question among a population for whom out-of-sequence schooling has grown more common: lower-educated mothers. This focus is also important given the growing education gap in women’s health and the links between maternal and child health. Data come from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,898). Analyses involve random intercept and fixed effects models and diverse health measures. Findings suggest that postsecondary education does not improve mother’s health, except for reduced smoking among mothers with high school degrees or less that earned bachelor’s degrees. These findings inform health policy debates and theories linking education to health.

Emerging Adults’ Timing and Self-Efficacy for Transitional and Gradual Roles

Emerging adulthood is a time of great transition, including but not limited to the commencement of “adult roles” and responsibilities. The present study examined emerging adults’ (EAs’) perceptions of transitional (i.e., cohabitating, marriage, parenting) and gradual (i.e., religious beliefs, political beliefs, managing own health) roles. Participants were recruited from a small liberal arts college (N = 88) and from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform (N = 181). They were surveyed on the age at which they anticipated or reported achieving the examined roles and their current self-efficacy for the roles. Female EAs reported intending to or achieving the transitional roles at a significantly later age than female EAs of the late 20th century (ps ≤ .001, ds 0.77–0.95). Additionally, female EAs anticipated role achievement for cohabitating, marriage, parenting, and religious beliefs at later ages than male EAs (ps < .05, gs 0.33–1.33). Moreover, male and female EAs differed in a few role-specific self-efficacies if they had not yet achieved the desired adult role (e.g., marriage, parenting; ps < .05, gs 0.62–0.98), but did not differ if they had already achieved the role. Lastly, the difference between EAs’ age and their role achievement largely did not predict their role-specific self-efficacies. The results provide additional insight into EAs’ expectations and current perceptions of themselves and may be useful to individuals who work regularly with EAs who are apprehensive about the extent to which they are “on time” and “ready” to engage in the examined transitional and gradual roles.

Delayed Adulthood, Delayed Desistance? A Brief Report on Changing Age Schedules of Risky Behaviors

Desistance from the risky behaviors associated with adolescence is linked to entry into adult roles like marriage and employment. Increases in the age of these transitions may delay desistance from risky behaviors. Using population data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Health Statistics, and tabulated data from Monitoring the Future, we chart trends in six problem behaviors—arrests, marijuana use, binge drinking, suicides, homicides, and motor vehicle deaths—between 1975 and 2017. We find delays in desistance from some behaviors. For instance, binge drinking peaked at ages 19–22 in earlier birth cohorts but at ages 23–26 in later birth cohorts. However, other behaviors showed no change in the timing of desistance. Women’s rates approached men’s in binge drinking and suicide, but gender gaps persist across behaviors. Delayed transitions to adult roles have not produced a singular pattern of delayed desistance from problem behaviors.

Migration, adolescents and health

In low- and middle-income countries, migration for work is common but the health consequences on adolescents is poorly understood. Particularly in low-resource settings, when children enter their adolescent years, their lives change dramatically as they take on adult roles. Young girls may get married and forced to move to their husband's home where they conduct domestic work and are exposed to high levels of air pollution from cooking. They are also more likely to become parents themselves. Many girls and boys drop out of school to work near their home or migrate within the country or abroad. They face risks throughout the journey and often work in precarious forms of labour. Among them, the unaccompanied adolescents face even greater risks than those who move with their parents. When parents migrate, despite increases in wealth from remittances, child and adolescent mental and physical health tends to worsen. With evidence mostly from the South Asian context, Dr Devakumar will explain detrimental impact of parental migration on left-adolescents and raise the importance of policy makers and health-care professionals on taking action to improve the health planning targeting of these young people.