Understanding Young Adults’ Development

Why is it important to understand how young adults develop? This is because supporting young people’s successful transition to adulthood requires a clear understanding of the predictable stages of development. While every young person is an individual, with their own unique background, abilities, personal characteristics, life events and context, there are major developmental events that are common across young people and likely to occur in the transition from childhood to adulthood. Discussing about young adulthood development is intended to provide practical, useable information about youth developmental milestones that can help identify the supports youth may need as they develop.
Moreover, early adulthood development is multifaceted (social, emotional, attitudinal, behavioral, cognitive, and physical) and each aspect of development is inextricably connected to the others. This report takes a developmental perspective because, in order to design and deliver the most effective experiences for youth, it is imperative to understand where youths are developmentally throughout their young lives. This understanding makes it possible for adults to match more appropriate experiences and interactions to the developmental needs of young people.
Early Adulthood Development
The period of adulthood constitutes three major developmental stages - the young adult stage, the middle-aged adult stage, and the older adult stage. Young adulthood is a time for establishing long-term, intimate relationships with other people, choosing a lifestyle and adjusting to it, deciding on an occupation, and managing a home and family (Santrock, 2006). As teenagers prepare for the challenges of adulthood, they are entering a period of tremendous growth and development. During this time, young people explore who they are and who they want to be. It is a period of frequent change and exploration that covers many aspects of their life: home, family, work, school, resources, and role. All of these decisions lead to changes in the lives of young adults that can be a potential source of stress for them (Santrock, 2006). So the questions “…who am I, and where am I going,” could be experienced by many emerging and young adults as overwhelming, particularly given an environment that leaves it up to the individual to figure it all out (Cote, 2006, p. 127).
Leaving the parental home to establish one’s own residence, establishing financial independence, completing school, moving into full-time employment, getting married, and becoming a parent are considered key markers of adulthood (Cohen et al., 2003; Shanahan, 2000). For previous generations, becoming an adult meant an observable series of life events in dependable order: college graduation, career, marriage, buying a home, having children. For today’s young adults, however, those life events are no longer so predictable: young people may marry earlier, later or not at all, they may or may not have children, they may not want to own a home. Moreover, studies have also identified two major groups of young adults who follow different pathways marked by indicators of education, employment, marriage, cohabitation, parenthood, and residence (Macmillan and Eliason, 2003).
The first major group includes young adults who move early into forming their own families and invest little in post-secondary education. In this group, the timing of first parenthood distinguishes two sub-groups: those who have children very early (in mid- and late-adolescence), and those who have children somewhat later, beginning in the early and mid-20s. The second major group includes those who invest in education, employment, and career development first and postpone family formation until later. The two pathways differ markedly by gender. More women than men are on the track of early family formation (Cohen, et al., 2003).
Very-early family formation clearly makes successful development in young adulthood difficult. Early parenthood is associated with a lower likelihood of marriage, a greater risk of divorce or separation, and less full-time work (Macmillan and Eliason, 2003). It hinders completion of high school and also continuation in post-secondary education. It lowers the well-being of mothers in young adulthood and worsens outcomes for their children (Furstenberg, 2003). Children from poverty disproportionately join the early-family-formation group, while children from homes with adequate incomes are more likely to invest in completing post-secondary education (Furstenberg, 2003; Kerckhoff, 1993). These differences reflect disparities in the opportunity structures of society.
 
 
Aman Sado Elemo (PhD)
 
Cohen, P., Kasen, S., Chen, H., Hartmark, C., & Gordon, K. (2003). Variations in patterns of developmental transitions in the emerging adulthood period. Developmental Psychology, 39, 657-669.
 
Furstenberg, F. F. (2003). Teenage childbearing as a public issue and private concern. Annual Review of Sociology 29: 23-39.
 
Kerckhoff, A. C. (1993). Diverging pathways: Social structure and career deflections. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Macmillan, R., & Eliason, S. R. (2003). Characterizing the life course as role configurations and pathways: A latent structure approach. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 529-554). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Santrock, J. W. (2006). Life-span development (10th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
 
Shanahan, M. J. (2000). Pathways to adulthood in changing societies: Variability and mechanisms in life course perspective. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 667-692.