Emerging and Young Adulthood

Before we examine the changes in physical development that occur in emerging adulthood, let’s begin with a closer look at the origins of this new life stage and concept. Traditionally, theories of human development described a stage of adolescence followed by a stage of young adulthood. The transition to young adulthood was assumed to be marked by entry to adult roles, specifically marriage, parenthood and stable work. For most people, entry into these roles took place around the age of 20 or shortly thereafter. By their early 20s, most people had formed the stable structure of an adult life. However, traditional stage models no longer fit the pattern of development that most people experience, especially in developed countries. The 20s are not a time of settling into a stable occupational path, but a time of exceptional instability in work, as the completion of education and training is followed by multiple job changes, for most people. Similarly, most people now marry and become parents in their late 20s or early 30s, rather than in their early 20s. As a consequence of these changes, it is increasingly recognised among scholars in human development that a new life stage has developed between adolescence and young adulthood. Rather than making the transition from adolescence to young adulthood quickly at around age 20, most people in developed countries experience a stage of emerging adulthood from their late teens to at least their mid-20s, before entering a more stable young adulthood at around age 30. ‘30 is the new 20’, as a popular saying puts it. Emerging adulthood lasts roughly from age 18 to about age 25 (theorised by Arnett). Age 18 works well as the end of adolescence and the beginning of emerging adulthood as it is the age of reaching legal adulthood in most countries and the age when most people finish secondary school. The end of emerging adulthood is more difficult to specify; it could be defined as the age when people first ‘feel adult’ completely, which for most people in most developed countries happens by around age 25. It could be defined as the age when people have made the major transitions traditionally associated with adult status - marriage, parenthood and stable work - which are reached for most people in most countries by around age 30. In 1960, the median age of marriage in most developed countries was in the very early 20s, around 21 for women and 23 for men. Now the median age of marriage in Australia is 32.3 for men and 30.5 years for women, and close to 30 in most other developed countries. Age at entering parenthood followed a similar rise.

Four revolutionary changes took place in the 1960s and 1970s that laid the foundation for the new life stage of emerging adulthood: the Technology Revolution (manufacturing technologies that transformed the world economy), the S-ual Revolution (invention of birth control and less stringent standards of s-ual morality), the Women’s Movement (expanding opportunities to young women) and the Youth Movement (stigmatises adulthood and glamourises being/feeling young).

Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of emerging adulthood is that it is the age of identity explorations. This means that it is an age when people explore various possibilities in love and work as they move towards making enduring choices. Through trying out these different possibilities they develop a more definite identity; that is, an understanding of who they are, what their capabilities and limitations are, what their beliefs and values are and how they fit into the society around them. The explorations of emerging adulthood also make it the age of instability. As they explore different possibilities in love and work, emerging adults’ lives change frequently. A good illustration of this is in how often they move from one residence to another. Rates of residential change in Australian society are much higher at ages 20-29 than at any other period of life. Emerging adulthood is also a self-focused age, a time in-between adolescents’ reliance on parents and young adults’ long-term commitments in love and work. During these years, emerging adults focus on themselves as they develop the knowledge, skills and self-understanding they will need for adult life. In the course of emerging adulthood, they learn to make independent decisions small and large, about everything from what to have for dinner to whether or not to marry their current partner. Being self-focused does not mean being selfish, and emerging adults are generally less egocentric than adolescents and more capable of taking the perspectives of others. The goal of being self-focused is learning to stand alone as a self-sufficient person, but emerging adults do not see self-sufficiency as a permanent state. Rather, they view it as a necessary step before committing themselves to lasting relationships with others, in love and work. Another distinctive feature of emerging adulthood is that it is an age of feeling in-between, no longer an adolescent but not fully an adult. When asked, ‘Do you feel that you have reached adulthood?’ the majority of emerging adults respond neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’ but with the ambiguous ‘in some ways yes, in some ways no'. Emerging adulthood is the age of possibilities, when many different futures remain possible, when little about a person’s direction in life has been decided for certain. It tends to be an age of high hopes, in part because few of their dreams have been tested in the fires of real life. In one national survey of 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S., nearly all agreed with the statement, ‘I am confident that eventually I will get to where I want to be in life’. This optimism in emerging adulthood has been found in other countries as well, such as China. It is also the age of possibilities because it is a time that holds the potential for dramatic changes. For those who have come from a troubled family, this is their chance to try to straighten out the parts of themselves that have become twisted. No longer dependent on their parents, no longer subjected to their parents’ problems on a daily basis, they may be able to make independent decisions.

Emerging adulthood exists as a life stage across developed countries, but the forms it takes vary by world region. Europe is the region where emerging adulthood lasts the longest and is most leisurely. The median age of entering marriage and parenthood is around 30 in most European countries. Europe today is the location of the most affluent, generous, egalitarian societies in the world - in fact, in human history. Governments pay for tertiary education, assist young people in finding jobs and provide generous unemployment benefits for those who cannot find work. In northern Europe, many governments also provide housing support. Emerging adults in European societies make the most of these advantages. The experience of emerging adulthood in Asian developed countries is markedly different from in Europe. Europe has a long history of individualism, dating back at least 500 years, and today’s emerging adults represent that legacy in their focus on self-development and leisure. In contrast, Asian cultures have a shared history emphasising collectivism and family obligations. Although Asian cultures have become more individualistic in recent decades as a consequence of globalisation, the legacy of collectivism persists in the lives of emerging adults. They pursue identity explorations and self-development during emerging adulthood, like their Western counterparts, but within narrower boundaries set by their sense of obligations to others, especially their parents. For example, in their views of the most important criteria for becoming an adult, emerging adults in the U.S. and Europe consistently rank financial independence among the most important markers of adulthood. In contrast, emerging adults with an Asian cultural background especially emphasise capable of supporting parents financially as among the most important criteria. Currently in developing countries, there tends to be a split between urban and rural areas in whether emerging adulthood is experienced at all. Young people in urban areas of countries such as China and India are more likely to experience emerging adulthood because they marry later, have children later, obtain more education and have a greater range of occupational and recreational opportunities than young people in rural areas have. In contrast, young people in rural areas of developing countries often receive minimal schooling, marry early and have little choice of occupation aside from agricultural work. However, emerging adulthood is likely to become more pervasive worldwide in the decades to come, with the increasing globalisation of the world economy. Participation in tertiary education is rising in developing countries, as are median marriage ages, especially in the urban middle class.

Physical maturity is reached in many ways by the end of adolescence. By age 18, people reach their full height. Puberty is over, and a degree of s-ual maturity has been attained that is sufficient to allow for reproduction. However, strength and endurance continue to grow into the 20s for most people, and illness rates are especially low as the immune system reaches peak effectiveness. On the other hand, health risks continue to loom in some areas, most notably car accidents and substance abuse. Emerging adulthood is the life stage of peak physical functioning, when the body is at its zenith of health, strength and vigour. Physical stamina is often measured in terms of maximum oxygen uptake, or VO2 max, which reflects the ability of the body to take in oxygen and transport it to various organs. VO2 max peaks in the early 20s. Similarly, cardiac output, the quantity of blood flow from the heart, peaks at age 25. Reaction time is also faster in the early 20s than at any other time of life. Studies of grip strength among men show the same pattern, with a peak in the 20s followed by a steady decline. The strength of the bones increases during this time as well. Even after maximum height is attained in the late teens, the bones continue to grow in density, and peak bone mass is reached in the 20s. The peak ages have been found to vary depending on the sport, with swimmers the youngest (the late teens) and golfers the oldest (the early 30s). However, for most sports, the peak age of performance comes during the 20s.

Emerging adulthood is also the period of the life span with the least susceptibility to physical illnesses. This is especially true in modern times, when vaccines and medical treatments have dramatically lowered the risk of diseases such as polio that used to strike mainly during these years. Emerging adults are no longer vulnerable to the illnesses and diseases of childhood, and with rare exceptions they are not yet vulnerable to diseases such as cancer and heart disease that rise in prevalence later in adulthood. Because the immune system is at its most effective during emerging adulthood, the late teens and early 20s are the years of fewest hospital stays and fewest days spent sick in bed at home. In many ways, then, emerging adulthood is an exceptionally healthy time of life. However, this is not the whole story. The lifestyles of many emerging adults often include a variety of factors that undermine health, such as poor nutrition, binge-drinking alcohol, lack of sleep and the high stress of trying to juggle school and work or multiple jobs. Longitudinal studies in the U.S. and Finland have found that physical activity, sport participation and exercise decline from adolescence to emerging adulthood. These lifestyle factors often make emerging adults feel tired, weak, and depleted, despite their bodies’ potential for optimal health. Furthermore, in many countries, the late teens and early 20s are the years of highest incidence of a variety of types of injury, death and disease due to behaviour. University students are more than twice as likely as other adults to report the symptoms of delayed sleep phase syndrome. This syndrome entails a pattern of sleeping far longer on weekends and holidays than on school or work days, which leads to poor academic and job performance as well as excessive sleepiness during school and work days. University students tend to accumulate a sleep debt during the week as they sleep less than they need, then they try to make up their lost sleep when they have time off, with negative consequences for their cognitive and emotional functioning.

Sleep researchers have established that people vary in their morningness and eveningness ; that is, their preference for either going to bed early and waking up early (morningness) or going to bed late and waking up late (eveningness). Furthermore, these preferences change with age, due to hormonal changes that are part of normal physical development - specifically, levels of growth hormone. One massive study of over 55,000 Europeans from childhood to late adulthood concluded that children tend towards morningness; however, in the course of adolescence and the early part of emerging adulthood, the balance shifts towards eveningness, with the peak of eveningness coming at about ages 20-21 (slightly earlier for women than for men). After ages 20-21, the balance shifts again towards morningness for the remainder of the life span.

Emerging adulthood is the low point of social control - the restraints on behaviour imposed by social obligations and relationships - individuals are more likely to take certain kinds of risks. Not all emerging adults take risks, of course, but risk behaviour of some kinds is more common at this time than at other age periods. Across developed countries, the most serious threat to the lives and health of adolescents and emerging adults comes from driving. In the U.S., young people aged 16-24 have the highest rates of car accidents, injuries and fatalities of any age group. In other developed countries, a higher minimum driving age and less access to cars have made rates of accidents and fatalities among young people substantially lower than in the U.S.; however, motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death during emerging adulthood in those countries as well. Studies have also concluded that inexperience is not the only factor involved. The time that most young adults achieve their driving licence coincides with reduced oversight by parents and increased autonomy. Gaining a driving licence affords greater independence through reduction in parental control over access to driving in the same way that would occur for learner drivers trying to attain their required experiential hours. Equally important is the way young people drive and the kinds of risks they take. Compared to older drivers, young drivers (especially males) are more likely to drive at excessive speeds, follow other vehicles too closely, violate traffic signs and signals, take more risks in lane changing and passing other vehicles, allow too little time to merge and fail to yield to pedestrians. Emerging adults are also more likely than older drivers to report driving under the influence of alcohol. Drivers aged 21-24 involved in fatal accidents are more likely to have been intoxicated at the time of the accident than people in any other age group, and they account for over one-quarter of drink-driving-related fatal crashes.

Many types of substance use reach their peak in emerging adulthood, although the National Drug Strategy Household Survey in Australia found that, compared to 2001, emerging adults were drinking less alcohol, smoking less and using fewer illicit drugs, but with 18- to 24-year-olds most likely to exceed guidelines. In North America, the national Monitoring the Future study, which has followed up several American cohorts from high school to middle age, shows that substance use of all kinds rises through the late teens and peaks in the early 20s, before declining in the late 20s. Some evidence shows that substance use is also high among emerging adults in other developed countries. A study of Spanish adults reported that among 18- to 24-year-olds, rates of binge drinking in the past 30 days were 31% for men and 18% for women, far higher than in any other age group. Wayne Osgood borrows from a sociological theory that explains all deviance on the basis of propensity and opportunity. People behave deviantly when they have a combination of sufficient propensity (i.e., motivation for behaving deviantly) along with sufficient opportunity. Compared to other age groups, emerging adults have an unusually high degree of opportunity for engaging in substance use and other deviant behaviour, as a result of spending a high proportion of their time in unstructured socialising. Unstructured socialising includes behaviour such as riding around in a car for fun, going to parties, visiting friends informally and going out with friends. Unstructured socialising is highest in the late teens and early 20s, and emerging adults who are highest in unstructured socialising are also highest in use of alcohol and marijuana. Rates of most types of substance use are especially high among emerging adults who are university students because they have so many opportunities for unstructured socialising. Osgood and others have found that the relationship between unstructured socialising and deviance holds not only for substance use, but also for other types of risk behaviour such as crime and dangerous driving. Furthermore, the relationship between unstructured socialising and deviance holds for both genders, a variety of ethnic groups and across a wide range of developed and developing countries. Research also shows that substance use and other types of risk behaviour decline in the mid- to late 20s as role transitions such as marriage, parenthood and full-time work cause a sharp decline in unstructured socialising.

Among emerging adults who face unusually difficult circumstances, such as abusive families, poverty or a history of adolescent delinquency, it is notable that many manage to adapt and function well. Resilience is the term for this phenomenon, defined as ‘good outcomes in spite of serious threats to adaptation and development’. Sometimes ‘good outcomes’ are measured as notable academic or social achievements, sometimes as internal conditions such as wellbeing or self-esteem, and sometimes as the absence of notable problems. Young people who are resilient are not necessarily high achievers who have some kind of extraordinary ability. More often they display what resilience researcher

Ann Masten calls the ‘ordinary magic’ of being able to function reasonably well despite being faced with unusually difficult circumstances. Resilience is promoted by protective factors that enable people to overcome the risks in their lives. Some of the most important protective factors identified in resilience research in childhood, adolescence and emerging adulthood include: high intelligence; one caring adult; a healthy school environment; spirituality. Although research on resilience has mostly involved children and adolescents, in recent years emerging adulthood has been proposed as a key period for the expression of resilience. Unlike children and adolescents, emerging adults have the ability to leave an unhealthy, high-risk family environment. Unlike older adults, emerging adults have not yet made the commitments that structure adult life for most people. Consequently, emerging adulthood is a period when there is an unusually high scope for making decisions that could turn life in a new and better direction. Experiences such as military service, romantic relationships, going to university, development of religious faith and work opportunities may provide turning point opportunities during emerging adulthood.

Although the focus of most theory and research on cognitive development is on childhood and adolescence, cognitive development continues in adulthood through participation in education and work. One of the changes of recent decades that has led to the development of a new life stage of emerging adulthood is increasing participation in education and training beyond formal schooling. The challenges of providing tertiary education to all who want it and need it is growing as it becomes more and more necessary for success in the changing world economy. Tertiary education is perhaps most relaxed and undemanding in Japan. You may find this surprising because, as we have seen in the chapter ‘Adolescence ’, Japanese secondary schools are exceptionally demanding, and competition to get into the best universities is fierce. Beyond university, the Japanese workplace is notoriously demanding as well, requiring long hours and mandatory after-hours socialising. For the Japanese, their time of leisure and fun comes during their university years. Once they enter university, grades matter little and standards for performance are relaxed. Instead, they have ‘four years of university-sanctioned leisure to think and explore’. Japanese university students spend a great deal of time walking around the city and hanging out together. Average homework time for Japanese university students is half that of high school students. For most Japanese people, this brief period in emerging adulthood is the only time in their lives, from childhood until retirement, that they are allowed to enjoy extensive hours of leisure. In Australia, New Zealand and Europe, the tertiary education system is structured quite differently from America, Canada and Japan. Rather than beginning with 2 years of general education, students in these countries study in only one topic area from the time they enter university. In Australia, for example, the education system typically comprises a 3-year bachelor’s degree in a specific discipline, followed by 1 year of honour’s study, then master’s and doctoral degrees. The length of degrees has also shifted. For example, traditionally, university education in Europe often lasted 6 or more years because it culminated in a degree that was similar to American advanced degrees (master’s or doctoral degree). However, the European system has changed recently to match the American system, with separate bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, similar to Australia and New Zealand. This was done to shorten the time European emerging adults spend in university and to promote the development of coordinated programs between European and American universities. It also reflects the growing globalisation of education.

A number of factors explain why it takes students longer to graduate and why nearly half never graduate at all. Some students prefer to extend their university years to switch majors, add a minor field of study or take advantage of internship programs or study-abroad programs. However, financial concerns are the main reason that a 4-year degree is so elusive for many emerging adults. Tuition rates have increased to a shocking extent and were over four times higher (even taking into account inflation) in 2013 than they were in 1982 in both public and private universities. Financial aid has also shifted markedly from grants to loans, which has led many students to work long hours while attending university in order to avoid accruing excessive debt before they graduate. African Americans especially struggle to fund their university educations and lack of money is one of the key reasons why they are less likely to obtain a university degree than Whites or Asian Americans are. The requirement to work to fund higher education is a pattern also common in Australia and New Zealand.

Participation in tertiary education requires a great deal of money per year, paid mainly by emerging adults and their parents, or the government in some developed countries. Furthermore, the years in which emerging adults are focused on obtaining tertiary education are also years when most of them are not contributing to full-time economic activity. Not only are governments paying much or all of the costs of financing emerging adults’ tertiary education, they are also losing the economic activity and tax revenue emerging adults would be contributing if their time and energy were devoted to working full time. Nevertheless, the benefits of tertiary education are substantial. For societies, an educated population is a key to economic growth in a world economy that is increasingly based on information, technology and services. This is why countries are willing to make such a large investment in the tertiary education of their emerging adults. For emerging adults themselves, the benefits are also clear. Emerging adults who obtain tertiary education tend to have considerably higher earnings, occupational status, and career attainment over the long run compared to those who do not attend university. For example, the median weekly earnings of Australians with a university degree are far higher than those who only obtain a high school or below education.

Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini have conducted research in America on this topic for many years. They found a variety of intellectual benefits from attending university, in areas such as general verbal and quantitative skills, oral and written communication skills and critical thinking. These benefits hold up even after taking into account factors such as age, gender, pre-university abilities and family social class background. Pascarella and Terenzini also found that in the course of the university years, students place less emphasis on university as a way to a better job and more emphasis on learning for the sake of enhancing their intellectual and personal growth. In addition to the academic benefits, Pascarella and Terenzini describe a long list of non-academic benefits. In the course of the university years, students develop clearer aesthetic and intellectual values. They gain a more distinct identity and become more confident socially. They become less dogmatic, less authoritarian and less ethnocentric in their political and social views. Their self-concepts and psychological wellbeing improve. As with the academic benefits, these non-academic benefits hold up even after taking into account characteristics such as age, gender and family social class background. Many adolescents have an idea, in high school, of what kind of career they want to go into. Often that idea dissolves in the course of emerging adulthood, as they develop a clearer identity and discover that their high school aspiration does not align with it. In place of their high school notions, many emerging adults seek identity-based work, something they enjoy and really want to do.

Many emerging adults express a sense that they did not really choose their current job, they just one day found themselves in it. In Arnett’s interviews with emerging adults, ‘I just fell into it’ is a frequently used phrase when they describe how they found their current job. Yet even the meandering process of trying various jobs often serves the function of helping emerging adults sort out what kind of work they want to do. When you are in a dead-end job, at least you find out what you do not want to do. And there is also the possibility that as you drift through various jobs you may happen to drift into one you enjoy, one that unexpectedly clicks. Frank Levy (a scholar on education) and Richard Murnane (an economist) have researched the job skills needed by these emerging adults in order to succeed in the workplace. They conducted observations in a variety of factories and offices to gain information about the kinds of jobs now available to high school graduates and the kinds of skills required for those jobs. They focused not on routine jobs that require little skill and pay low wages but on the most promising new jobs available to high school graduates in the changing economy, jobs that offer the promise of career development and middle-class wages. They concluded that six basic skills are necessary for success at these new jobs: reading at a 9th-grade level or higher, doing maths at a 9th-grade level or higher, solving semi-structured problems, communicating orally and in writing, using a computer for word processing and other tasks, collaborating in diverse groups. The good news is that all six of what Levy and Murnane call the new basic skills could be taught to adolescents by the time they leave high school. The bad news is that many adolescents currently graduate from high school without learning them adequately. Levy and Murnane focused on reading and maths skills because those are the skills on which the most data are available. They concluded that the data reveal a distressing picture: close to half of all 17-year-olds cannot read or do maths at the level needed to succeed at the new jobs. The half who do have these skills are also the half who are most likely to go to university rather than seeking full-time work after high school. In addition to such skills, gender has also been found to influence career choices and expectations. In Australia, the unemployment rate for emerging adults is up to twice as high as for adults beyond age 25. The rates for Indigenous emerging adults are even higher, with Indigenous populations exceeding the unemployment rate of the general population in all age brackets. To say that someone is unemployed does not just mean that the person does not have a job. A large proportion of young people in their late teens and early 20s are attending high school or university, but they are not classified as unemployed because school is considered to be the focus of their efforts, not work. People whose time is mainly devoted to caring for their own children also would not be classified as unemployed. Unemployment applies only to people who are not at school, are not working and are looking for a job.

Emerging adulthood is a period when emotional and self-development turn more favourable in a variety of ways. After declining in adolescence, self-esteem now rises steadily. Identity development advances and reaches fruition in some ways, as young people move towards making enduring choices in love and work. Gender issues are confronted in new ways as emerging adults enter the workplace and encounter occupational gender expectations and sometimes gender stereotypes. Reaching emerging adulthood usually means having more control over the social contexts of everyday life, which makes it possible for emerging adults to seek out the contexts they prefer and avoid those they find disagreeable, in a way that adolescents cannot. For example, adolescents who dislike school and do poorly have little choice but to attend school, where poor grades may repeatedly undermine their self-esteem. However, emerging adults can leave school and instead engage in full-time work that they may find more gratifying and enjoyable, thus enhancing their self-esteem. A key feature of emerging adulthood is that it is the age of identity explorations. Emerging adulthood is when most people move towards making definite, long-term choices in love and work. Making these choices often involves thinking about who you are, where you want your life to go, what you believe in and how your life fits into the world around you. During this time, explorations are made into various aspects of identity, especially love and work, culminating in commitments that set the foundation for adult life. It is now generally accepted among scholars that emerging adulthood is the life stage when many of the most important steps in identity development take place. However, for most of the history of research on identity, the focus was on adolescence. This focus was due mainly to Erik Erikson’s influence, but it is also because adolescence was formerly the life stage when the main choices in love and work were made.

There are three elements essential to developing an identity, according to Erikson. First, adolescents assess their own abilities and interests. By this age, most people have a growing sense of what their strengths and weaknesses are and what they most and least enjoy doing. Second, adolescents reflect on the identifications they have accumulated in childhood. Children identify with their parents and other loved ones as they grow up - that is, children love and admire them and want to be like them. Thus, adolescents create an identity in part by modelling themselves after parents, friends and others they have loved in childhood, not simply by imitating them but by integrating parts of their loved ones’ behaviour and attitudes into their own personality. Third, adolescents assess the opportunities available to them in their society. Many dream of a fabulous career in sport, music or entertainment, yet there are relatively few opportunities for people to make a living in these areas. Sometimes opportunities are restricted due to discrimination. Erikson’s most influential interpreter has been James Marcia. Marcia constructed a measure called the Identity Status Interview that classified adolescents into one of four identity statuses: diffusion, moratorium, foreclosure or achievement. This system of four categories, known as the identity status model, has also been used by scholars who have constructed questionnaires to investigate identity development rather than using Marcia’s interview.

Diffusion is an identity status that combines no exploration with no commitment. For adolescents in a state of identity diffusion, no commitments have been made among the choices available to them. Furthermore, no exploration is taking place. The person in this status is not seriously attempting to sort through potential choices and make enduring commitments. Moratorium involves exploration but no commitment. This is a status of actively trying out different personal, occupational and ideological possibilities in order for adolescents to determine which of the available possibilities are best suited to them. Adolescents who are in the foreclosure status have not experimented with a range of possibilities but have nevertheless committed themselves to certain choices - commitment, but no exploration. This is often a result of their parents’ strong influence. Marcia and most other scholars tend to see exploration as a necessary part of forming a healthy identity, and therefore see foreclosure as unhealthy. This is an issue we will discuss further shortly. Finally, the classification that combines exploration and commitment is achievement. Identity achievement is the status of young people who have made definite personal, occupational and ideological choices. By definition, identity achievement is preceded by a period of identity moratorium in which exploration takes place. If commitment takes place without exploration, it is considered identity foreclosure rather than identity achievement. Although Erikson designated adolescence as the stage of the identity crisis, and research using Marcia’s model has mostly focused on adolescence, studies indicate that it takes longer than scholars had expected to reach identity achievement, and in fact for most young people this status is reached - if at all - in emerging adulthood or beyond, rather than in adolescence. Studies that have compared adolescents from ages 12 to 18 have found that although the proportion of adolescents in the diffusion category decreases with age and the proportion of adolescents in the achievement category increases, even by early emerging adulthood less than half are classified as having reached identity achievement.

Even 50 years ago, Erikson observed that identity formation was taking longer and longer for young people in developed countries. He commented on the ‘prolonged adolescence’ that was becoming increasingly common in such countries and how this was leading to a prolonged period of identity formation, ‘during which the young adult through free role experimentation may find a niche in some section of his society’. Considering the changes that have taken place since he made this observation in the 1960s, including much later ages of marriage and parenthood and longer education, Erikson’s observation applies to far more young people today than it did then. An identity with two distinct facets; for example, one for the local culture and one for the global culture, or one within one’s ethnic group and one for others is known as bicultural identity. Like other identity issues, issues of ethnic identity come to the forefront in adolescence and continue to grow in importance into emerging adulthood. As part of their growing cognitive capacity for self-reflection, adolescents and emerging adults who are members of ethnic minorities are likely to have a sharpened awareness of what it means for them to be a member of their minority group. Ethnic identity examples: Assimilation: ‘I don’t really think of myself as an Asian New Zealander, just as a New Zealander'. Separation: ‘I am not part of two cultures. I am just Black'. Marginality: ‘When I’m with my Indian friends, I feel White, and when I’m with my White friends, I feel Indian. I don’t really feel like I belong with either of them'. Biculturalism: ‘Being both Vietnamese and Australian means having the best of both worlds. You have different strengths you can draw from in different situations'. Several studies have found that having a strong ethnic identity is related to a variety of other favourable aspects of development, such as overall wellbeing, academic achievement and lower rates of risk behaviour.

Australian women are over-represented in low-paid part-time work, and the average Australian woman has to work an extra 66 days per year to equal the pay of her male counterparts. University students often evaluate women’s work performance less favourably than men’s. One study reported that gender stereotypes can be especially harsh for people who have high status in gender-incongruent occupations; for example, a woman who has become head of an engineering department. Gender-related evaluations may also depend on the age of the evaluator. Adolescents were more likely than the emerging adult university students to favour the gender-stereotypical candidate. No differences were found between the two stages of adolescence. This suggests that gender stereotypes may wane from adolescence to emerging adulthood.

Children and adolescents learn the cultural beliefs distinctive to their culture, and by emerging adulthood, they have developed a worldview composed of these beliefs. However, beliefs continue to develop during emerging adulthood and beyond. In emerging adulthood, there are notable developments in religious and political beliefs and behaviour. Overall, there was a decline in religiosity from adolescence to emerging adulthood, both in behaviour and in beliefs. Only about 30% of emerging adults attended religious services at least once a month; over half attended only a few times a year or less. Beliefs were stronger than behaviour: 44% reported that religious faith is ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important in their lives and 75% reported believing in God. Nevertheless, these percentages were lower than they had been in adolescence.  Emerging adults tend to have lower political participation not only in comparison to adults, but also in comparison to previous generations of young people. They tend to be sceptical of the  motivations of politicians and to see the activities of political parties as irrelevant to their lives. One study of young people in eight European countries found that low levels of trust in political authorities and political systems were consistent from adolescence to emerging adulthood. However, the rejection of conventional politics should not be construed as a lack of interest in improving the state of their communities, their societies and the world. On the contrary, emerging adults in many countries are more likely than older adults to be involved in organisations devoted to particular issues, such as environmental protection and efforts against war and racism. In one nationwide survey of first-year university students in the United States, only 28% said they were interested in politics, but 81% had done volunteer work and 45% had participated in a political demonstration.

Emerging adulthood is a life stage in which sociocultural contexts change in some profound and dramatic ways. After living within a family context from infancy through adolescence, emerging adults in many countries (namely Western) move out of their parents’ household, diminishing their parents’ influence and giving them more control over their daily lives. Friends are highly important, especially for emerging adults who are currently without a romantic relationship. Romantic relationships take on new importance as intimacy deepens and emerging adults move towards making an enduring commitment to a love partner. Media remain a source of entertainment and enjoyment, especially social media. Typically, relationships between parents and emerging adults improve once the young person leaves home. There are a number of possible outcomes when emerging adults move back home. For some, the return home is welcome and the transition is managed easily. A successful transition home is more likely if parents recognise the change in their children’s maturity and treat them as adults rather than adolescents. For others, however, the return home is a bumpy transition. Parents may have come to enjoy having the nest all to themselves, without children to provide for and feel responsible for. Emerging adults may find it difficult to have parents monitoring them daily again, after a period when they had grown used to managing their own lives. In Arnett’s research, after one of his participants moved home, she was dismayed to find that her mother would wait up for her when she went out with her boyfriend, just like it was high school all over again. They did not argue openly about it, but it made the participant feel ‘like she was sort of “in my territory” or something’. For many emerging adults, moving back home results in ambivalence. They are grateful for the support their parents provide, even as they resent returning to the subordinate role of a dependent child. Perhaps because of this ambivalence, the return home tends to be brief, with two-thirds of emerging adults moving out again within 1 year.

There is more to the changes in relationships with parents from adolescence to emerging adulthood than simply the effects of moving out, staying home or moving back in. Emerging adults also grow in their ability to understand their parents. Adolescence is in some ways an egocentric period, and adolescents often have difficulty taking their parents’ perspectives. They sometimes evaluate their parents harshly, magnifying their deficiencies and becoming easily irritated by their imperfections. As emerging adults mature and begin to feel more adult themselves, they become more capable of understanding how their parents look at things. They come to see their parents as people and begin to realise that their parents, like themselves, have a mix of qualities and merits as well as faults. There has been little research on sibling relationships in emerging adulthood. However, one study found that emerging adults spent less time with their siblings than adolescents did, but also felt more emotional closeness and warmth towards them. Conflict and rivalry were also reported to be less intense by emerging adults than by adolescents. Intimacy becomes more important to friendships in adolescence than it had been in middle childhood, and that trend may continue into emerging adulthood. Self-disclosure promoted emotional closeness for young women, whereas for young men, shared activities were usually the basis of feeling emotionally close. Much of their time together is unstructured socialising, in activities such as visiting each other informally and going out together. Some drink alcohol or use drugs together, and as we have seen earlier, unstructured socialising and substance use often take place together. Emerging adults also participate in media-related activities together, such as watching television or playing video games. Many enjoy playing sport or exercising together. Overall, leisure activities with friends decline steadily in the course of the 20s as emerging adults form close romantic relationships and begin to enter adult responsibilities such as stable work, marriage and parenthood. Emerging adulthood is a time of gradually building the structure of an adult life in love and work. In many cultures, explorations in love are part of this process as emerging adults experience a series of romantic and s-ual relationships in the course of deciding on a long-term partner. A key part of emerging adulthood involves moving away from one’s family, not just geographically, but also socially and emotionally, and towards a new love partner, in marriage or another long-term romantic partnership. Jennifer Tanner, calls this process ‘re-centring’. For children and adolescents, the centre of their emotional lives is within their family, with their parents and siblings. For adults, the centre of their emotional lives is usually with a new family constellation, mainly a romantic partner, and usually children as well. When they talk about what they are looking for in a romantic partner, emerging adults around the world mention a wide variety of ideal qualities. Sometimes these are qualities of the person, the individual: intelligent, attractive or funny. But most often they mention interpersonal qualities, qualities a person brings to a relationship, such as kind, caring, loving and trustworthy. Emerging adults hope to find someone who will treat them well and who will be capable of an intimate, mutually loving, durable relationship.

In romantic relationships as in friendships, intimacy becomes more important in emerging adulthood than it had been in adolescence. In addition to looking for intimacy, emerging adults also seek a romantic partner who will be like themselves in many ways. Opposites rarely attract; on the contrary, birds of a feather flock together. A long line of studies has established that emerging adults, like people of other ages, tend to have romantic relationships with people who are similar to themselves in characteristics such as personality, intelligence, social class, ethnic background, religious beliefs and physical attractiveness. Scholars attribute this to what they call consensual validation, which means that people like to find in others a match, or consensus, with their own characteristics. Finding this consensus reaffirms, or validates, their own way of looking at the world. The more similar your love partner is to you, the more likely you are to reaffirm each other and the less likely you are to have conflicts that spring from having different views and preferences. Cohabitation (partners living together before marriage) is normalised in Australia but stigmatised across certain cultures.

Emerging adults are more likely than adults in older age groups to engage in ‘hooking up’ (another act which is stigmatised in many cultures). Various studies indicate that about a quarter of s-ual episodes among American emerging adults take place outside a romantic partnership. Young men are more likely than young women to have attitudes that favour this. They tend to be more likely than young women to be willing to have intercourse with someone they have known for only a few hours, to have intercourse with two different partners in the same day and to have it with someone they do not love. Emerging adulthood is also the peak period for (STIs), including chlamydia, human papilloma virus (HPV), herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) and HIV/AIDS.

Media are a big part of the lives of today’s emerging adults. They have grown up in a time of extraordinary innovation in the way media products are delivered and consumed. Educator and writer Marc Prensky calls them ‘digital natives’, entirely at home in the digital world from infancy onwards, in contrast to the ‘digital immigrants’, their parents, many of whom never feel quite at home with all the new media. Social media is an arena for identity presentation and reflects the prominence of identity issues in emerging adulthood. Having a profile also allows users to maintain and expand their social networks. Emerging adults use the sites mainly to keep in touch with old friends and current friends and to make new ones. This function is especially important in emerging adulthood because emerging adults often leave home and the network of friends they formed at secondary school. Furthermore, emerging adults frequently change educational settings, jobs and residences. Social networking websites allow them to keep in contact with the friends they leave behind as they move through emerging adulthood and to make new friends in each new place.

Emerging adulthood does not exist as a normative period of the life span in developing countries, especially in rural areas, where few young people continue education beyond secondary school and the median ages of entering marriage and parenthood are often in the late teens. Where there is no life stage of emerging adulthood, young people develop directly from adolescence to young adulthood in their late teens or very early 20s as they take on adult work and begin a new family. Young people from their early teens to their late 20s typically agree that the most important markers of the transition to adulthood are: accepting responsibility for oneself, making independent decisions, becoming financially independent. These three criteria (which promote individualism) rank highest not just across cultures and nations, but also across age groups, ethnic groups and social classes. In addition to the top three criteria for adulthood that have been found across cultures, studies have found distinctive cultural criteria as well. Young Argentines especially value being able to support a family financially, perhaps reflecting the economic upheavals Argentina has experienced for many years. Emerging adults in Korea and China view being able to support their parents financially as necessary for adulthood, reflecting the collectivistic value of obligation to parents found in Asian societies. In India, emotional self-control is one of the top criteria for adulthood. This is consistent with the collectivistic emphasis in Indian culture on consideration of the wellbeing of others. Research also highlights some of the challenges for transitioning young adults in remote Indigenous cultures in Australia. Indigenous Australians may experience 'emerging adulthood' more intensely than non-Indigenous counterparts as education opportunities, and by extension, employment, are limited for this community (particularly when living rurally). Anthropologists have found that in virtually all traditional cultures, the transition to adulthood is clearly and explicitly marked by marriage. It is only after marriage that a person is considered to have attained adult status and is given adult privileges and responsibilities. In contrast, very few young people in developed countries consider marriage to be an important marker of the transition to adulthood. In fact, in developed countries, marriage ranks near the bottom in surveys of possible criteria for adult status. Traditional cultures elevate marriage as the key transition to adulthood because they prize the collectivistic value of interdependence (mutual obligations) more highly than the individualistic value of independence, and marriage signifies that a person is taking on new interdependent relationships outside the family of origin. Marriage is a social event rather than an individual, psychological process and it represents the establishment of a new network of relationships with all the kin of one’s marriage partner. This is especially true in traditional cultures, where family members are more likely to be close-knit and to have extensive daily contact with one another than is typical for families in the West. Thus, cultures that value interdependence view marriage as the most important marker of entering adulthood because of the ways marriage confirms and strengthens interdependence. Nonetheless, further investigation of young people’s conceptions of the transition to adulthood in traditional cultures may prove enlightening (i.e. reaching adulthood through chronological/biological and behavioural changes) and that their views may not match the conceptions of adulthood held by adults.

Perhaps the most obvious indicator that ageing begins in young adulthood is greying hair. People vary widely in when their first grey hairs appear, but for most people this takes place in their 30s. Young adulthood is also the life stage when the hair begins to thin, for both men and women, and the hairline begins to recede for many men, especially men with a European heritage. About half of men of European background experience substantial hair loss by age 40. Other biological changes: Muscle mass decreases, bone marrow decreases in B cells, heart decreases in maximum heartrate (increase in cholesterol and fat build-up in arteries), lungs decrease in vital capacity, thymus decreases in T-cells (vital cells for the immune system) and skin gets looser as wrinkles begin. People with white skin tend to exhibit skin ageing earlier than people with darker skin tones, especially if their skin has been often exposed to direct sunlight in their younger years. Like the ageing of hair, ageing of skin is resisted by many people in cultures that value a youthful appearance through methods such as skin creams, injections or laser treatments.

Most of the other physical changes that are part of ageing are more subtle in young adulthood. The heart muscle starts to become more rigid, but this is not noticeable except during times of intense physical activity when there is a decrease in the maximum heart rate, which in turn decreases the amount of oxygen that the heart can deliver to the body. Deposits of cholesterol and fat begin to accumulate in the arteries of the cardiovascular system, especially in people whose diets are high in these substances, but there will be little risk for cardiovascular disease until middle adulthood. The immune system also shows signs of ageing in young adulthood. As noted, it is strongest in emerging adulthood, and consequently rates of a wide range of illnesses and diseases are low. During young adulthood the immune system remains strong but declines in ways that may not yet be detectable. The thymus, a gland in the upper part of the chest, gradually reduces its production of disease-fighting T cells, ceasing entirely by age 50. Production of B cells , a type of immune cell that originates in bone marrow and produces antibodies to destroy bacteria and viruses, also declines. In addition, it takes longer to recover from injuries in young adulthood than it did in emerging adulthood. Young adulthood is a crucial time for the development of obesity. An important physiological change takes place beginning at age 25 in the basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the amount of energy the body uses when at rest. From ages 25 to 50, the average person’s BMR declines as a natural part of the ageing process. This change makes it easier to accumulate weight because the body no longer burns as many kilojoules when resting. Even to maintain the same weight from the late 20s to the 30s, a young adult would have to eat less and/or exercise more with each year.

Another biological contributor to weight is genetics. Even when eating the same diet, people will vary in how much weight they gain or lose. Studies of twins show that weights are more similar in monozygotic (MZ) twins than in dizygotic (DZ) twins, even when the twins grow up in different families. Researchers have found that a specific protein, leptin, is involved in weight levels in both animals and humans. Leptin is released by fat cells to signal that the body has had enough to eat, and it also influences BMR. Animals and humans with relatively low leptin levels become heavier, have a higher percentage of body fat and lose weight more slowly following a reduction in food intake. Some people appear to have a genetically based resistance to leptin, making obesity more likely.

Rates of obesity have risen dramatically in developed countries in recent decades, with adult obesity rates highest in the United States, Mexico, New Zealand and Hungary, while they are lowest in Japan and Korea. There are many reasons for this increase. In one study that compared the diets of American adults in 1970 and 2000, women ate over 300 calories more per day in 2000 than in 1970, and men’s intake increased by more than 150 calories per day. A combination of more working single parents and more dual-career parents may have made the nightly home-cooked dinner less common. Consequently, more of what people ate over this time was ‘fast food’ high in fats and sugars, such as hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza and soft drinks. People have also engaged in less physical activity over recent decades. With a decrease in manufacturing jobs and an increase in jobs related to information and technology, fewer jobs require physical activity. Television has become the main evening leisure activity, displacing more active pursuits such as gardening and sport. Obesity places people at risk for a variety of health problems in young adulthood and beyond. Common problems resulting from obesity in young adulthood are high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep disorders and digestive problems. There are social consequences as well. In the workplace, young adults who are obese may be the target of teasing, ridicule and discrimination. People who are obese have more difficulty than others in finding a romantic partner in young adulthood, and young adult women who are obese are more likely than other women to be depressed. Are there effective ways for people to lose weight once they have become overweight or obese? Certainly there is no shortage of diet books, programs, foods, drinks and pills promising an enthusiastic YES to this question. The reality, however, is mixed. Drastic ‘fad diets’ can see quick results but they are unlikely to work in the long term as we cannot maintain these strict requirements. Making physical activity part of our everyday routine has been shown to be effective. Surgery that shortens or restricts the digestive system is highly effective for reducing severe obesity, but any surgery is costly and carries risks, so this is an extreme step. Because most people in developed countries spend their workdays sitting down rather than planting and harvesting, or fetching water and firewood, or performing repetitive labour in a factory, they obtain little physical exercise unless they seek it out. Children are more physically active than adolescents, and physical activity continues to drop during the 20s and 30s across developed countries. For young adults who do exercise regularly, there are many benefits, especially if it is aerobic exercise that substantially elevates the heart rate for at least 30 minutes. Aerobic exercise includes activities such as running, swimming and aerobic dancing, as well as a wide range of sports such as football and basketball. Aerobic exercise promotes a healthy weight because it reduces body fat. It also increases people’s metabolic rate for several hours, which means that they continue to burn off kilojoules long after they have stopped exercising. There are also mental health benefits from exercising. It generates brain chemicals called endorphins that provide a pleasurable feeling and increase wellbeing. People who exercise regularly have lower rates of anxiety and depression. Exercise also enhances cognitive functioning.

Intelligence tests administered in childhood and adolescence are moderately correlated with school success, and they are often used in school settings to identify children and adolescents who have learning disabilities. IQ tests predict success in adulthood as well. One meta-analysis of longitudinal studies on intelligence found that scores on IQ tests in childhood were a powerful predictor of income and occupational status in adulthood. Adults who score in the lowest 25% of the distribution on IQ tests are likely to have trouble performing most kinds of adult work successfully, especially work that involves the use of information and technology. Adults who score in the highest 25% of the IQ distribution often do well in their careers, in terms of income, advancement and awards. They were also less likely than the people in the comparison group to have personal problems in adulthood, including alcoholism, divorce and mental health issues. The kinds of problems encountered by adults in their work - or their personal relationships - rarely have the kind of simple, definite solutions IQ tests reward. The problems adults confront are often complicated and require the ability to make decisions despite having insufficient or ambiguous information. Furthermore, different cultures emphasise different aspects of intelligence. Among Chinese adults, for example, intelligence includes features such as humility, self-knowledge and freedom from conventional standards of judgement. Studies in various African cultures show a common theme that intelligence includes skills that help promote group harmony and social responsibilities. Sternberg (known for the triarchic theory of intelligence) has also argued that intelligence includes practical aspects, applied to the problems and challenges of everyday life. Practical intelligence is a key component of intelligence that is culture-specific and is not adequately assessed by standard IQ tests.

One important way cognitive development changes from emerging adulthood to young adulthood is that the focus moves more towards gaining expertise, meaning extensive knowledge and skills in a specific field. According to scholars in this area, it takes about 10 years of study or practice in most fields to attain expertise. Because most people begin steady work in a specific field sometime in their 20s, expertise is generally first reached a decade later, during the young adult years, at some point in their 30s. Expertise continues to develop during middle adulthood. Gaining expertise allows people to address problems and tasks in their field more quickly and efficiently. They build a store of knowledge and experience in their field, and when confronted with a problem or task, they are likely to know something about it and to have had experience with something similar. This allows them to form ideas quickly about how the new situation should be addressed. They know not only what has worked in the past, but also what has not worked, so they waste less time than novices do in pursuing potential solutions that are unlikely to bear fruit. A burst of brain development takes place during adolescence, as dendritic connections between neurons multiply vastly (overproduction/exuberance) and are then pared down through synaptic pruning. The process of synaptic pruning continues into the 20s, but by the late 20s, the brain is believed to reach adult maturity in the sense that the period of overproduction/exuberance is long past and synaptic pruning is no longer taking place at a high rate. Researchers on neuropsychology especially note how the maturity of the frontal cortex during young adulthood is linked to expertise. In one study, it was found that in adults with high levels of maths-related expertise, their brain activity in solving math problems was concentrated in specific areas of the prefrontal cortex, whereas for non-expert adults, their brain activity in solving the same problems was distributed more broadly. It appears that the maturity of the frontal cortex, combined with training in a specific area, promotes the kind of focused attention and goal-directed behaviour that leads to expertise. However, there is also a wide range of individual differences in the development of expertise. One new theory proposes that the development of expertise is both guided and limited by the interaction between genotype and environmental opportunities. Specifically, the theory proposes that deliberate regular practice in an area can lead to expertise over time, but only among people who possess high abilities in that area. This theory is consistent with research we have discussed throughout this text, emphasising the importance of both genetics and environment in development. Another aspect of cognitive development that is especially important in young adulthood is creativity. A creative person is someone who is able to put ideas or materials together in new, culturally meaningful ways. A person who invents a new electronic device is exhibiting creativity, as is a person who composes a piece of music. Creativity is easier to define than to measure. Because creativity involves coming up with something new, it is difficult to derive a test for it. Tests are scored for ‘right answers’, and creativity involves coming up with answers than no one had thought of before. Assessments of creativity have focused instead on the number of works a person produces, or on the timing of a person’s ‘best’ works, as determined by experts in the area or by the works’ influence. For example, creativity in musical composition could be judged by how much a work has been performed, while creativity in academic scholarship could be judged by how many times a work has been cited in publications by other scholars. A number of studies of people with outstanding accomplishments have found that their creative achievements rise during young adulthood and peak in the late 30s and early 40s, then gradually decline through middle and later adulthood. But why does creativity not continue to rise throughout life, since people continue to develop expertise in middle adulthood and beyond? Apparently because ‘familiarity breeds rigidity’, as one early scholar of creativity put it. At first, gaining expertise promotes creativity because expertise provides the knowledge and skills that are the raw materials of creative work. Eventually, however, expertise becomes a liability. The problems, concepts, materials and ideas people are working with are no longer fresh, and people have more difficulty seeing them in new ways. Their accumulated expertise now tends to steer them down the same paths they have trod many times before, rather than forging new ones. Cognitive flexibility wanes as people find it more difficult to give things a fresh look. Although young adulthood is often an exceptionally creative life stage, there are many variations and individual differences. The peak of creativity varies across different fields. Artists, musicians, inventors, mathematicians and physicists tend to be most creative in their 20s and 30s. In contrast, novelists are often most creative in their 40s, 50s and even 60s.

In Erik Erikson’s theory of the life span, intimacy versus isolation is the central emotional and psychosocial issue of young adulthood. Adolescence and emerging adulthood involve the challenge of forming an identity in love, work and ideology. According to Erikson, establishing intimacy means uniting your newly formed identity with another person in an enduring, committed, intimate relationship. Healthy intimacy does not mean ‘losing yourself’ in devotion to another person; on the contrary, it means having a strong enough identity to become emotionally close to someone without submerging yourself. The alternative is isolation, characterised by an inability to form an intimate relationship. Some research supports Erikson’s view that intimacy in young adulthood is built on a previous foundation of identity development. For example, in one study of adolescents and emerging adults (aged 12–24), at all ages, identity development was a strong predictor of involvement in an intimate romantic relationship. In an analysis summarising many studies of the relationship between identity and intimacy status, Annie Årseth and colleagues concluded that identity sometimes develops prior to intimacy, but they can also develop together and mutually reinforce each other. It should be noted that research on this topic has taken place only in the West, where intimacy is considered to be the ideal basis for romantic relationships and marriage. This is not true in all cultures. Most studies indicate that intimacy issues arise earlier for females than for males - so females often accomplish intimacy before identity, or the developmental processes of identity and intimacy take place simultaneously for females - whereas males tend to achieve identity before intimacy. The relationship between identity and intimacy tends to be more complex for young women than for young men because young women are more likely to take their intimate relationships into account in forming their personal identity goals, especially with respect to education and work.

Robert Sternberg proposed that different types of love involve combining three fundamental qualities in different ways. These three qualities are passion, intimacy and commitment. Passion involves physical attraction and s-ual desire. It is emotional as well as physical and may involve intense emotions such as anxiety, delight, anger and jealousy. Intimacy is feelings of closeness and emotional attachment. It includes mutual understanding, mutual support and open communication about issues not discussed with anyone else. Commitment is the pledge to love someone over the long run, through the ups and downs. Commitment is what sustains a long-term relationship through fluctuations in passion and intimacy.

Seven different forms of love: Liking is intimacy alone. This is the type of love that characterises most friendships. Friendships often involve some level of intimacy, but without passion and without an enduring commitment. Most people have many friendships that come and go in the course of their lives. Infatuation is passion alone, without intimacy or commitment. Infatuation involves a great deal of physiological and emotional arousal, and a heightened level of s-ual desire, but without emotional closeness to the person or an enduring commitment. Empty love is commitment alone, without passion or intimacy. This might apply to a couple who have been married for many years and who have lost the passion and intimacy in their relationship but nevertheless remain together. It also could apply to the early stage of marriage in cultures where marriages are arranged and partners are selected by the parents rather than chosen by the young people themselves. However, arranged marriages that begin as empty love may eventually develop passion and intimacy. Romantic love combines passion and intimacy, but without commitment. This is the kind of love people mean when they talk about being ‘in love’. It is often experienced as intense and joyful, but it rarely lasts long. Companionate love combines intimacy and commitment, but without passion. It may be applied to married or long-term couples who have gradually decreased in their passion for each other but have maintained the other qualities of their love. It could also be applied to unusually close friendships, as well as to close family relationships. Fatuous (which means ‘silly’ or ‘foolish’) love involves passion and commitment without intimacy. This kind of love would apply to a ‘whirlwind’ courtship where two people meet, fall passionately in love and get married, all within a few weeks, before they even have time to know each other well. Consummate love integrates all three aspects of love into the ultimate love relationship. Of course, even if consummate love is reached in a relationship, over time passion may fade, or intimacy may falter, or commitment may be betrayed. But this is the kind of love that represents the ideal for many people.

Passion tends to peak early in a relationship and then fade. This observation fits well with research finding that married couples often experience their highest levels of mutual happiness and marital satisfaction in the first year or two of their marriage. Passion is high, they feel deeply ‘in love’ and they enjoy the afterglow from their wedding. However, passion fades fairly quickly in most relationships as partners become used to each other and the stresses and conflicts of daily life accumulate. In contrast, intimacy and commitment begin lower than passion and take longer to develop, but they also endure longer. Because most people first marry or form another type of long-term partnership in young adulthood, this is a life stage when people are most likely to feel a peak of passion in their romantic relationship and also a stage when the feelings of intimacy and commitment in the relationship are gradually growing.

Young adulthood is a life stage when developing new family relationships is the central focus of social life for most people. Usually this means entering marriage and parenthood, but not always. Some people remain single, and some people become parents without becoming married. Work is another important social context in young adulthood as most people try to settle into an occupation and develop a career. In addition to family and work, many young adults devote time to community activities, and most of them find time for media use, especially television. All cultures have a division of labour and roles by gender, and marriage is a way of uniting people to serve complementary gender roles. Another explanation is that marriage reduces s-ual competition and conflict because it allows people to have socially approved s-ual relations on a regular basis. Perhaps the most compelling explanation is that marriage is necessary for a species like us that has such a long period of infant dependency, during which mother and infant would be highly vulnerable if they had no one to protect and provide for them. Among other animal species, too, stable mating pairs are most likely to exist in species where mothers are unable to feed both themselves and their young for an extended period following birth and so require a mate who can bring back food or watch the young while she goes off to find food herself.

Psychologist David Buss carried out a study of over 10,000 young people in 37 countries on answering "what determines how people choose a marriage partner?". The countries were from all over the world, including Africa, Asia, Eastern and Western Europe and North and South America. The questionnaire had to be translated into 37 languages, with great care taken to make the meanings of words such as ‘love’ as similar as possible in every country. In many of the countries, some of the young people were illiterate, so the questions had to be read aloud to them. Despite all these challenges, the results showed impressive consistencies across countries and across genders. ‘Mutual attraction-love’ ranked first among marriage criteria across countries, followed by ‘dependable character’, ‘emotional stability and maturity’ and ‘pleasing disposition’. This cross-cultural consistency is somewhat surprising, given that there are many cultures where love is not the basis of marriage. Similarity in religious and political background ranked very low, which is also surprising, given that people tend to marry others who are similar to them in these ways. ‘Good financial prospects’ also ranked low. Although the cross-cultural similarities were strong and striking, some cross-cultural differences were also notable. The sharpest cross-cultural division was on the issue of chastity. Although both genders prize physical attractiveness, men prize it more highly than women. In contrast, women are more likely to value ambition and financial status in a prospective marriage partner (although both genders rank these traits fairly low). In general, the more gender equality exists in a country, the more similar men and women are in their mate preferences. Polygyny was more common in rural areas than in urban areas, and the more education women had, the less likely they were to be in a polygynous marriage. Because polygyny is less likely with urban residence and education, it may be that as Africa continues to develop economically, the custom of polygyny will fade. However, for now, polygyny is a major influence on adult development throughout Africa. In contrast, polyandry, in which a woman has more than one husband, is extremely rare anywhere.

The idea that romantic love should be the basis of marriage is only about 300 years old in the West and is even newer in most of the rest of the world. Marriage has more often been seen by cultures as an alliance between two families, rather than as the uniting of two individuals. Parents and other adult kin have often held the power to arrange the marriages of their young people, sometimes with the young person’s consent, sometimes without it. The most important considerations in an arranged marriage do not usually include the prospective bride and groom’s love for one another - often they do not even know each other - or even their personal compatibility. Instead, the desirability of marriage between them is decided by each family on the basis of the other family’s status, religion and wealth. Economic considerations have often been of primary importance. However, cultural expectations for marriage matter a great deal and arranged marriages are not necessarily less happy than other marriages. In one analysis of couples in India who were in either arranged marriages or ‘love marriages’ (i.e., chosen by the partners themselves), among couples in their first year of marriage ‘love marriages’ were happier, but beyond the 10-year mark couples in arranged marriages were happier. With marriage in the West now carrying such a weight of expectations, and with marriage partners hoping to find in each other a soul mate who is an ideal emotional, social and s-ual companion, it is perhaps not surprising that the early years of marriage typically entail a decline in marital satisfaction as marriage partners adjust to the reality of living with each other and going through conflicts and compromises. For most Western couples, marital satisfaction is higher in the first year than it ever will be again. There is a steady decline in marital satisfaction in the first few years, followed by a plateau and then another decline after 9 or 10 years of marriage.

Protective factors for marital satisfaction: realistic expectations, shared interests, shared roles and responsibilities, shared power, fundamental enjoyment of each other's company, commitment to problem-solving. Lee and McKinnish’s research suggests that marital satisfaction may vary with the age gap between the marital partners, with reported satisfaction changing more rapidly for differently aged couples. The initial high satisfaction that both men and women feel on marrying a younger spouse may therefore be erased after the first 6-10 years of marriage.

Expressive divorce: according to Barbara Whitehead, the type of divorce common in the West today, in which people expect marriage to fulfil their emotional needs for love and intimacy, and they seek a divorce if it ceases to do so. Rates of divorce vary widely across world regions. Even today it is rare in most parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and southern Europe. It is highest in English-speaking countries and northern and eastern Europe. However, the divorce rate is rising worldwide, a trend that researchers attribute to rising individualism. Some of the factors that are related to higher likelihood of divorce are young age at marriage (younger than 25), having divorced parents and low religious involvement. Divorce risk peaks in young adulthood, 5-10 years after marriage. The strains of caring for young children may make maintaining marital intimacy more problematic. Socioeconomic status is also highly important as a risk factor for divorce. Among American partners who both have less than a high school degree, one-third of marriages end in divorce within 5 years; when partners have a high school degree or some university education, the 5-year divorce rate is one-quarter; and for couples who both have 4-year university degrees, the 5-year divorce rate is just 13%. Conflict over financial issues is a predictor of divorce, so it may be that divorce is more common among less educated couples because they make less money and consequently experience greater financial strains. Rates of divorce in the United States are especially high among African Americans - 70%, compared to 45% among Whites - in part because African American couples often have lower incomes.

Common risk factors for divorce: infidelity, excessive substance use, abuse/assault, s-ual incompatibility, apathetic partner, poor conflict-resolution skills (name-calling, harshness, silent treatment, etc.). Most young adults build their social and personal lives around their marriage, so divorce is often a difficult adjustment. For both men and women, divorce is followed by increased risk of psychological problems such as depression and anxiety disorders, as well as sleep disorders and increased substance use. Men usually leave the household in a divorce, and many miss the daily contact they had with their children before the divorce; women experience the strain of carrying out the household tasks and child care by themselves, and usually experience a steep loss of income. Overall, men experience a greater decline in functioning than women do following divorce and take longer to recover, perhaps because women draw more on social support from family and friends. For both men and women, the low point in functioning tends to come 1-2 years following the divorce, followed by a gradual recovery for most people. A key part of coming back from divorce for most people is finding a new partner. Most people who divorce in young adulthood remarry within 5 years.

Although being happily married has many benefits, people who are in unhappy marriages are the lowest of all in overall happiness, even compared to people who are separated, divorced or widowed. Singlism: negative stereotypes of single people that lead to them being discriminated against and treated dismissively. Studies of young singles’ views of their singlehood report that they see both advantages and disadvantages. They enjoy the freedom to make their own decisions and to do what they want when they want. On the other hand, they miss the companionship of being part of a couple, they become weary of changing romantic and s—ual partners and they sometimes feel out of step in a world where most young adults are part of a couple.

At age 40, 41% of African Americans have never married, compared to one-quarter of Latinos and 20% of Whites. However, African Americans have higher rates of cohabitation than the other two groups do, so rates of long-term partnerships among the groups are similar. Rates of remaining single are also high - and rising - in some Asian countries, especially in urban areas. There are a number of reasons for this increase in singlehood among young adults in Asia, most notably the widening opportunities available to young women, who often prefer the excitement and freedom of their singlehood to the traditional obligations of female submission that still go along with marriage in some Asian countries. In Japan, the derisive term parasite singles has been applied to young adults who remain single into their 30s, implying that they are selfish and immature. Nevertheless, single young adults are the happiest group in all of Japan - happier than older singles and happier than married adults of any age group.