Explain emerging adulthood and the criteria for adulthood cited by emerging adult Americans.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In industrialized countries, entrance into adulthood takes longer and follows more varied routes than in the past. Before the mid-twentieth century, a young man just out of high school typically would seek a stable job, marry, and start a family. For a young woman, the usual route to adulthood was marriage, which occurred as soon as she found a suitable mate.

Since the 1950s, the technological revolution made higher education or specialized training increasingly essential. The gender revolution has brought more women into the workforce and broadened female roles. Today the road to adulthood may be marked by multiple milestones-entering college, working, moving away from home, getting married, and having children-and the order and timing of these transitions vary. Thus, some developmental scientists suggest that the late teens through the mid- to late 20s has become a distinct period of the life span now known as emerging adulthood. It is a time during which young people are no longer adolescents but have not yet settled into adult roles.

The top three criteria for adulthood cited by emerging adult Americans are "accepting responsibility for oneself, making independent decisions, and becoming financially independent"-criteria that reflect the U.S. cultural values of individualism and self-sufficiency.