Young Adulthood in the U.S.

- Stats and Trends

Your task for this assignment is to highlight and evaluate current trends and
data in the U.S. as they relate to the developmental tasks of young
adulthood.
STEPS:
1. Review Developmental Tasks of Adulthood Chart
What are the milestones for YOUNG ADULTS (Ages 20-40)? (This also includes Stage 6 of
Erikson’s “Intimacy v. Isolation”)

2. What are some questions you are curious about in this age group? (Write a few below)
● Which factors contribute to the deviant behavior of young adults and how is it being
regulated?
● How the age of getting married gets shifted and how important it is to have a family with
children for young people?
● How the upbringing in families stimulate social behavior of boys and girls.

3. Read through The Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood: 1975-2016
This report looks at trends in the U.S. with young adults. What surprises you?
What stats do you find interesting? Is there evidence that young adults are
meeting milestones? Missing the mark?
I focused on “Most Americans Believe Young People Should Be Economically Secure
Before Settling Down” on page 4. It’s really surprising that people expect young adults to
be already economically secure before settling down since not all you adults can have stable
jobs, in my opinion there is a really low chance of someone being financially stable and able
to pay all payments required to settle down at a young age. I found it interesting how 61.5%
of young adults consider it extremely important to have a complete formal schooling since
that’s one of the main paths to have a stable job. According to Table 1. Milestones of
Adulthood 51.8% complete a milestone by the ideal age and only 5.2% of young adults
don’t consider it really important.
4. Decide on a research question you would like to explore and write it here:
How the age of getting married gets shifted and how important it is to have a family with children for
young people?
****Example Research Question: If separating from parents is a task of young adults, do the current
employment and/or housing statistics show most are living independently?
*Your statistics must be for ages 20-40 only. You must collect the MOST CURRENT data available to
you.You may use other sources of information if it is U.S. data

5. Answer the following questions (in paragraph form):

What data from your research may be used to answer your question? Does the data provide a clear
answer to your question? If not, what additional information do you think is necessary to gather?

According to the article, How marriage has changed from baby boomers to millennials from
Talia Lakritz “Millennials are waiting longer to get married and have children than baby boomers
did”, as well 20% of Americans ages 18 to 30 are married, compared to 32% of Gen X-ers and 40%
of baby boomers when they were the same age..
Were the results what you expected? Explain.

I did expect those results since nowadays young adults try to have a better education rather than
getting married at a young age in order to provide a better life for themselves and their families if
they want to have. According to Early Teen Marriage and Future Poverty “Previous research points
to a variety of social, family, health, and financial outcomes that are strongly correlated with early
teen marriage and low education” we can see that there is a connection between life aspects and
having a low education. At the same time, teenage marriage is also associated with much lower
education levels; women who marry before the age of 19 are 50% more likely to drop out of high
school and four times less likely to graduate from college

Reflect on the information learned as it relates to our understanding of developmental trends for
this age group.

I feel that as years go on and I have a better understanding of life, things get complicated
sometimes. In my opinion, I would really like to complete my education, have a stable job and be
somewhat economically stable as well before getting married or having kids since it’s going to be a
big responsibility. As time goes young adults are thinking more about being stable either with work
or financially before actually getting married or having kids.