Markers Of Adulthood Research Articles

Higher education and the transition to adulthood: socioeconomic inequality in college students’ self-narratives

AbstractHow does socioeconomic status relate to the self-narratives youth craft in higher education? This article examines in-depth interviews with 96 students at a broad-access public university to illuminate how narratives of the transition to adulthood are shaped by socioeconomic inequality among youth who enroll in the same postsecondary institution. Although most students across backgrounds agreed that they were “not yet adults,” there were differences in the ways they described their paths to adulthood. Less socioeconomically advantaged students characterized their journeys as stalled, focusing on difficulties obtaining traditional markers of adulthood. These participants struggled to incorporate college experiences into their narratives and engaged in self-deprecation and self-blame. Meanwhile, more socioeconomically advantaged students highlighted personal growth in college to portray themselves as individuals with potential, who were positioned for future success. These findings provide unique insight into higher education’s role in cultural reproduction and have implications for students’ opportunities transitioning to postbaccalaureate life.

Sexual Orientation Disparities in Adulting: Emerging Adulthood Markers, Depression and Anxiety among Filipino Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Women

Sexual Orientation Disparities in Adulting: Emerging Adulthood Markers, Depression and Anxiety among Filipino Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Women

The Quest for a “Soft Life” and the Transition into Adulthood: Views from South African Emerging Adult Students

Gaining financial independence is a prominent marker of adulthood. This study explored the experiences of a group of South African students (MAge = 22.24), with a specific focus on how the psychological tasks of emerging adulthood are embedded in the socio-economic context. Through the thematic analysis of 26 interviews, participants’ hopes, fears, and well-being (while managing student life shaped by an economically contentious situation) were unpacked. Considering the academic, personal, and social threats in their quests for independence, participants appreciated the support from parents, the university, and funders. Despite financial obstacles, they portrayed a strong personal commitment and resilience to excel academically, be financially liberated, and break the cycle of poverty. Hardship inspired dreams to secure a better future, a ‘soft life’, for themselves and others. Findings are discussed in juxtaposition with the responsibility of institutions to ensure a just society where emerging adults can flourish into financially stable adulthoods and futures.

Perceived Markers of Adulthood in the Peri-Urban Areas of Nairobi, Kenya

Perceived Markers of Adulthood in the Peri-Urban Areas of Nairobi, Kenya

Perceptions of Adulthood and Mental Health.

In contrast to conventional definitions, the contemporary conceptualization of adulthood emphasizes psychological characteristics over sociodemographic milestones. At the same time, an increasing number of theorists propose that the way individuals view adulthood may have a significant impact on the mental health of both adolescents and adults. However, empirical examination of this hypothesis has been notably limited to date. The aim of this study is to explore the association between individuals' perceptions of adulthood and multiple dimensions of mental health. This study applied some adulthood markers and multiple mental health indexes (including well-being, optimism, Alexithymia, satisfaction with life, Goldberg's index of mental health, the dark triad, and dimensional personality disorders) to a community sample comprising 1772 individuals in Spain, spanning ages from 16 to 93 years. The findings support the overarching hypothesis, as perceptions of adulthood display strong correlations with nearly every assessed index of mental health, particularly those that comprise a dimension of negative emotions. These associations persist even after accounting for age and socio-economic status, and in alignment with the psychological paradigm of adulthood, they show a notable consistency across various age groups. This study establishes that such perceptions of adulthood represent a modifiable factor contributing to positive mental health. The implications of these findings for the formulation of public policies aimed at promoting mental health in the context of adulthood, as well as a number of future studies, are deliberated.

Associations between epigenetic age acceleration and longitudinal measures of psychosocioeconomic stress and status

Relationships between epigenetic aging markers and psychosocial variables such as socioeconomic status and stress have been well-documented, but are often examined cross-sectionally or retrospectively, and have tended to focus on objective markers of SES or major life events. Here, we examined associations between psychosocial variables, including measures of socioeconomic status and social stress, and epigenetic aging markers in adulthood, using longitudinal data spanning three decades from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study. The largest effects were observed for epigenetic markers of change in health, such as DunedinPACE and GrimAge, and for associations involving education, income, net assets, general social stress, inequality-related stress, and financial stress. Analyses of polygenic indices suggests that at least in the case of education, the link to epigenetic aging cannot be accounted for by common genetic variants.

“Overgrown Children” and Where to Find Them: Film Portrayals of Coresiding and Residentially Independent Siblings’ Developmental Maturity

Though young adult coresidence (in which individuals aged 18–35 reside within the family home) is stigmatized in mass media, research has not explored how such depictions relate to understandings of development. We used qualitative content analysis to explore how contemporary Canadian and American films depicted coresiding young adults and their similarly aged, residentially independent siblings with respect to various markers of adulthood. We found that coresiding characters were largely portrayed as developmentally immature both socially (e.g., full-time work) and characterologically (e.g., relational competence). In contrast, residentially independent siblings were overwhelmingly cast as developmentally on time. We argue that these depictions and contrasts reinforce a stigmatized coresider trope, framing the traits and actions of coresiders in terms of atypical development and attributing this living arrangement to individual faults. Implications for social attitudes and the wellbeing of emerging adults are discussed.

“I am my own future” representations and experiences of childfree women

This research sought to understand the reality of childfree women by exploring their representations and experiences in a society still marked by binary and traditional gender roles anchored in motherhood as a marker of adulthood and femininity. For this purpose, a qualitative study was held in which semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with eight women, aged between 23 and 45, born and resident in Portugal. The thematic analysis showed that despite the pressures of motherhood they face daily and the social stigma they are subjected to by pronatalist expectations, childfree women successfully construct their identity by designing different paths for their self-fulfilment. In addition, the existence of online childfree communities has shown to be able to compensate for the lack of access throughout their life cycle to female role models who have not had nor wanted children.

Online Success as Horizon of Survival: Children and the Digital Economy in Lagos, Nigeria

Literature on the impact of the digital ecosystem on youth is largely grounded on Western case studies and Eurocentric in its working assumptions; yet African children and teenagers—who account for most of the continent’s population—have been early adopters of social media’s possibilities and are exposed to distinctive risks. This article shows how, in the absence of viable institutional structures for self-actualization in post-liberalization Nigeria, digital platforms turn children into central actors of economic flexibility. With transitional pathways disappearing, formal employment and traditional markers of adulthood are no longer on the horizon of African youths. Uncertainty, hustling, and extraordinary aspirations are part and parcel of their socialization process, with “survival” and “success” increasingly perceived as intertwined, requiring everyone, from the youngest age, to “perform.” From rags-to-riches stories of viral children groups to racist images and videos of children feeding China’s livestreaming boom and the meme culture across the world, commodified African childhood is projected into the flows of digital popular culture, enabled by legal and socioeconomic vulnerability and the internalization of visibility as an avenue of opportunity. Nigeria in particular, with the world’s largest population of out-of-school children on the one hand, and an internationally booming entertainment industry on the other, delineates a palpable, yet unsustainable mode of aspiration and wealth acquisition through engagement with social media. This article draws on a year-long ethnographic investigation in Lagos among (a) groups of teenage aspiring dancers seeking to “blow” online and (b) marketing professionals who use children in their commercial strategies.

Pathways of Intergenerational Support between Parents and Children throughout Adulthood

This paper examines varying patterns of exchanges in financial and residential support between parents and children. We apply a life course perspective to explore how patterns of intergenerational support unfold throughout adulthood. Using Waves 3 to 5 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we conduct a repeated measure latent class analysis and identify six pathways of intergenerational exchange. About one-third of individuals have minimal intergenerational exchange while the majority share some form of residential and financial assistance with their parents between their late teens and early forties. Upward and downward intergenerational exchanges are most common among Blacks, Hispanics, and families with less formal educational backgrounds, whereas pathways of complete independence are most common among White families. This paper challenges the notion of complete independence as a necessary marker of adulthood and maps out the diverse patterns of intergenerational exchange along multiple dimensions over the life course.

What Does It Mean to be an Adult? Adulthood Markers in the Perspective of Emerging Adults

Debate on the markers of adulthood reflects social and cultural changes shaping the socially constructed definitions of transition to the next life stages. These processes are particularly interesting in societies facing rapid changes in a relatively short period. The presented article explores definitions of adulthood of Polish emerging adults and relates dominating concepts to the classic Big Five. The study is based on a random, all-country sample of young adults (18–29 years old, n = 303). The most frequently described criteria of adulthood are related to responsibility and independence (decisive, financial, and residential). Three of five classic markers – finishing school, getting married, and having a child – have lessened in significance. Further analysis reveals that the fourth classic marker – independent housing – does not play a key role, albeit independence is significantly associated with financial autonomy.

Commitments beyond coupledom: Negotiating relational futures in Finnish small-scale communes

In this paper, I analyze the possibilities for organizing one's personal life around co-residing friendship and roommate relationships in the life course position of adulthood. The normative significance of coupledom and procreation as markers of adulthood has hardly diminished, although the nuclear family model has opened up in past decades in Euro-American countries. I argue that the close connection between coupledom and adult status sidelines communal living as a relational arrangement when persons age beyond the socially shared understanding of youth. Moreover, resisting this temporal order leads communal dwellers into a socially structured negotiation of their future trajectories, where personal autonomy in friendship and roommate relations poses an intra-relational obstacle to building a communal future. The paper is based on 31 interviews with residents of Finnish small-scale communes. Communal dwellers’ negotiations of future trajectories dealt with finding someone to build their life with, whether commitment could be expected in friendship and roommate relations, and whether long-term communal living is compatible with existing housing structures.

Trail to Adulthood: Status of Youth Grounded on Markers of Adulthood

Adulthood is considered as one of the longest life courses; major transition is taking place in one’s life during the entry of this life course. There are markers or milestones one must achieve to enter into adulthood. Many researchers have reported that young people of modern society take much longer time to enter into adulthood and durability of the transition period is unusually longer than normal transition (Arnett, 2000; Cote, 2000; Robbins &Willner, 2001). The term “Emerging Adulthood” is a culturally constructed life course that has been introduced by Arnett (Arnett, 1994). The paper is trying to find out the Perceived adulthood status, Status of achieved markers and the Importance given by the young people to the markers using the Markers of Adulthood scale introduced by Arnett. The study has been conducted among young people aged between 18 and 25 in Kerala, India. The study results show that heterogeneity exists in this age group is related with their adulthood perception and most of the markers are not yet achieved by the majority of the participants. They give importance to their individuality as well as their civic responsibility and parental care.

Conceptions of Adulthood Among Chinese Emerging Adults

With the influence of globalization, Chinese young adults’ transition to adulthood today are cultivated by both traditional Chinese values (e.g., collectivism, Confucian philosophy), as well as Western values (e.g., individualism, independence). The present study aimed to characterize emerging adults’ perception of adulthood in China today in terms of (1) the criteria for adulthood Chinese emerging adults considered important; (2) the relationships between subjective importance of adulthood status and status as a student or non-student; (3) gender; and (4) hukou status (rural vs urban). Chinese emerging adults aged 17–30 (N = 7099; 69% college students; 54% female; 57% with rural hukou status) completed a cross-sectional survey between October and November 2021. We found that most Chinese emerging adults felt ambivalent about their adulthood status. The findings suggest that cultural and geographical differences exist between emerging Chinese and Western young adults in their perceptions of entering adulthood. Concerning the self-perceived adulthood status and the subjective importance of criteria, several differences were found among Chinese emerging adults based on gender (male vs female), hukou status (rural vs urban), and educational status (student vs non-student). With increasing age, being men or having rural hukou, Chinese emerging adults may be more likely to adhering to traditional markers of adulthood. Overall, this study not only sheds light on conceptions of adulthood among Chinese emerging adults, but also provides implication for understanding emerging adults’ lived experience and subjective perception of this life stage.

The Content of the Attitudes “I Am Now” and “I Am an Adult” in Adolescents with Different Characteristics of Personal Maturity

Introduction. In the modern world, there is an expansion of the spectrum of transition trajectories to adulthood in adolescents and young people as well as the increased importance of “subjective markers of adulthood”, which represent a set of qualities of a “mature personality”. There is no idea about the specifics of the growing up trajectories among modern adolescents, taking into account their psychological characteristics. The purpose of the article is to investigate the quantitative and qualitative indicators of the images “I am now” and “I am an adult” in adolescents with different levels of personal maturity. Materials and Methods. The survey involved 1 097 adolescents aged between 13 – 17. The method of contrast groups by the Self-assessment Scale of personal maturity allowed to identify subgroups of adolescents with high and low levels of personal maturity. The quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the attitudes “I am now” and “I am an adult” obtained by the modified “Who am I?” technique were compared in these subgroups. Results. Regardless of the characteristics of personal maturity, adolescents include more elements in the attitudes “I am now” than in “I am an adult”; the core of both attitudes includes mainly the characteristics of the socio-demographic, formalized and individualized Self. Differences between the subgroups of adolescents with HPM and LPM include: different age dynamics of the number of elements in the attitudes “I am now” and “I am an adult” (a consistent decrease in the number of elements in adolescents with HPM against an absence of significant changes in the sample of their peers with LPM), as well as a more significant contribution of the characteristics of social-role functioning in attitudes “I am now” and “I am an adult” in adolescents with HPM. Discussion and Conclusion. The research contributes to the understanding of the psychological characteristics of modern adolescents who are at the stage of transition to adulthood. The results will be useful for the practice of psychological and pedagogical support of growing up and psychological counseling on personal self-determination in adolescence.

‘Brave men’ and ‘pampered children’: Male bodies, labour and coming of age in Belgian Congo

AbstractThis article sheds light on male identities in interwar Belgian Congo by using the colony's largest palm oil concession as a case study. Based on colonial archives and oral testimonies, it shows how vernacular and colonial understandings of masculinity interplayed and keep on influencing ways to ‘be a man’ in the present. This article is divided into four parts. First, it highlights how vigorous male bodies supposedly constituted entry points in the colonial ‘civilizing mission’. Second, it addresses the convergences between coming‐of‐age rituals and of palm oil labour as markers of adulthood. Third, it nuances the association of dominant masculinity with brute force by showing how the ‘strongest’ palm oil workers were suspected to use witchcraft. Fourth, it addresses the apparent contradiction between recollection of colonial labour as an experience of hardships and paternalist ‘pampering’.

Early-Life Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollutants Induced Anxiety-like Behaviors in Rats via Neurotransmitters and Neurotrophic Factors.

Recent epidemiological studies have reported significantly increasing hospital admission rates for mental disorders such as anxiety and depression, not only in adults but also in children and adolescents, indicating more research is needed for evaluation of the etiology and possible reduction and prevention of these disorders. The aim of the present study was to examine the associations between perinatal exposure to traffic-related air pollutants and anxiety-like behaviors and alterations in neurological and immunological markers in adulthood using a rat model. Sprague Dawley pregnant rats were exposed to clean air (control), diesel exhaust (DE) 101 ± 9 μg/m3 or diesel exhaust origin secondary organic aerosol (DE-SOA) 118 ± 23 μg/m3 from gestational day 14 to postnatal day 21. Anxiety-related behavioral tests including open field tests, elevated plus maze, light/dark transition tests and novelty-induced hypophagia were performed on 10-week-old rats. The hippocampal expression of neurotransmitters, neurotrophic factors, and inflammatory molecular markers was examined by real-time RT-PCR. Anxiety-like behaviors were observed in both male and female rat offspring exposed to DE or DE-SOA. Moreover, serotonin receptor (5HT1A), dopamine receptor (Drd2), brain-derived neurotrophic factor and vascular endothelial growth factor A mRNAs were significantly decreased, whereas interleukin-1β, cyclooxygenase-2, heme oxygenase-1 mRNAs and microglial activation were significantly increased in both male and female rats. These findings indicate that brain developmental period exposure to traffic-related air pollutants may induce anxiety-like behaviors via modulation of neurotransmitters, neurotrophic factors, and immunological molecular markers, triggering neuroinflammation and microglia activation in rats.

‘Since Having a Child, I Finally Feel Like an Adult’: Exploring Intersections of Contemporary Transitions-To-Motherhood and Transitions-To-Adulthood

The paper investigates intersections between two biographical processes, namely the transitions-to-motherhood and transitions-to-adulthood. Considering the research focused on transitions in the modern world, the paper looks at how transitions-to-motherhood are narrated in relation to both the general life situation and ‘objective’ adulthood markers, and the subjective understandings of whether one feels ‘like an adult’. Drawing on a qualitative longitudinal study (QLS) of becoming a mother in contemporary Poland, the paper explores three types of transitional sequences. The typology includes scheduled, detoured and accidental transitions-to-motherhood, conceptualized through the lens of broader chronologies of reaching adulthood. By leveraging a temporal lens enabled by QLS, the paper offers a new perspective on the marker of parenthood as the feature of contemporary transitions-to-adulthood.

Profiles of emerging adults’ resilience facing the negative impact of COVID-19 across six countries

Although emerging adults (i.e., individuals aged 18–29 years old) may be at a lesser risk of COVID-19 severe illness and mortality, studies have found that the negative impact of COVID-19 on mental health and well-being is higher among emerging adults when compared to other age groups. The current study aimed to identify profile(s) based on resilience resources, which could help emerging adults in managing the disruptions to their lives following the pandemic. A cross-national sample of 1,768 emerging adults from China, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and the US was utilized to identify profiles based on different resilience dimensions (ego-resiliency, positivity, religiosity, socioeconomic status, family support, peer support). Results of the Latent Profile Analysis suggest the presence of four different profiles: no resources, only peer, only family, and well-equipped. The association of these profiles with demographic variables, adulthood markers, self-perceived COVID-19 impact, present well-being, and future life perception was investigated. Implications for resilience theory as well as for future interventions are discussed.

DNA methylation profile of a rural cohort exposed to early-adversity and malnutrition: An exploratory analysis.

Barker's hypothesis affirms that undernourishment in early-life induces metabolic reprogramming that compromises organism functions later in life, leading to age-related diseases. We are exposed to environmental and social conditions that impact our life trajectories, leading to ageing phenotypes as we grow. Epigenetic mechanisms constitute the link between both external stimuli and genetic programming. Studies have focused on describing the effect of early adverse events such as trauma, famines, or childhood labor on epigenetic markers in adulthood and the elderly. However, we lack information on epigenetic programming in individuals born in rural communities from underdeveloped countries, exposed to negative influences during fetal and postnatal development, particularly chronic malnutrition. Hence, in this exploratory analysis, we characterize the epigenome of individuals and some parents from Tlaltizapan (a rural community in Mexico originally studied almost 50years ago) and collect anthropometric data on growth and development, as well on the living conditions of the families. Our results help build a biological hypothesis indicating that most of the epigenetic age measures of the subjects are significantly different among them. Interestingly, the most affected methylated regions correspond to pathways involved in neuronal system development, reproductive behaviour, learning and memory regulation.