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Young Adults Delaying Transition to Adult Life
DELAYING TRANSITION TO ADULT LIFE
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DELAYING TRANSITION TO ADULT LIFE
Young Adults Delaying Transition to Adult Life
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Young Adults Delaying Transition to Adult Life
Introduction
Over the past two decades on one of the core, social change that has captured scholars' attention is the changing trend towards delayed transition into adulthood. Cote and Bynner (2008, p. 251) assert that the emerging adulthood period between ages 18 to 25 has undergone critical social changes characterized by the postponement of various critical commitments which were previously made during this age. Such commitments include delayed marriage, delayed occupational development, development of a worldview. This social fact has further been supported by census studies carried out by Statistics Canada (2009) which noted that a lot of young people were delaying getting into more adult roles, with most having their first marriage at an older age than ever before, and others still living with their parents till late twenties and early thirties. This paper argues that delayed transition into adult life is a social fact and relates it to factors that contribute to this delayed transition.
Transition to Adult Life
Eighteen is often viewed as a critical age and a milestone towards being more adult. Clark (2007, p. 13) shows that transiting into adult life involves taking on more adult like roles and becoming more independent in various aspects of life. Based on a 40-year survey study, Clark notes that young people aged between 18 to 34 years have been delaying the five core transitions, which define the path towards attaining more adult like roles. These five transitions include completing school, moving out of the parent’s home, finding a full time job, getting married, and having children. These five transitions into adulthood have been impacted by various social and economic changes over the past decades.
Delayed Transition into Adulthood in Relation To Changes in the Economy
The Canadian economy has changed over the past century. Two core changes that have contributed to delayed transition into adult life include the decline of agricultural and manufacturing sectors from which young unskilled people got employment and the rise of the service sector, and demographic changes. The decline of the agricultural and the manufacturing over the past decade resulted in reduced unskilled work that was a major source of employment for the youth, which also fostered early life transitions once they were old enough or once they completed school. By 1990’s, the unskilled labour force in Canada collapsed and the labour market required workers that are more skilled. Increased globalization, outsourcing and corporate restructuring in the 1990 and 2000s further exacerbated the availability of unskilled work (Cote & Allahar, 2007). Hence, younger people pursued higher education to develop skills.
The survey by Statistics Canada (2009) showed that many young people in Canada are increasingly pursuing higher education, making them stay longer in school. This delays the transition period as most young are often still dependant on their parents and living with them during this period. Furthermore, over the last three decades more the number of women having higher educational attainments have increased with the number of university graduates over the past thirty years having doubled (Clark, 2007, p. 15). This is consistent with a feminist approach to this social fact where as more women educated, independent, and have high earning power, they also tend to delay marriage as they pursue career prospects.
In addition, more young people who complete their undergraduate degrees progress into graduate studies and...