Career Trajectories of Young Adults: Comparing Two Cohorts of the NLSY

• In Event: 067 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 01. Transition to Adulthood: Socioeconomic Attainment

Abstract

In this paper, I examine life trajectories of young adults in their twenties to test the theory that paths to adulthood have become less standardized and more individualized over the last few decades. Combining optimal-matching and cluster analysis of monthly sequences with multinomial regression analysis, I identify common pathways to adulthood for respondents of two cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth and test the effects of cohort and gender on pathway. I find that while some researchers have suggested that contemporary young adults should follow less standardized paths because of changes in the labor market, chiefly increased flexibility in the employer-employee relationship, and changes in norms, especially in the extension of adolescence and young adulthood, in actuality, the trajectories of young adults in the 2000’s are more standardized than the trajectories of young adults in the 1980’s. However, this increase in standardization is largely driven by the decline of early family formation—especially married-parenthood—among young adults in the 2000’s. I find that decreased family formation is coupled with increased standardization of life paths in the twenties. I also show that the paths of young women in the 1980’s are the least standardized, due to a diverse set of employment and family formation trajectories.

Author

• Jennifer Lynn Branstad, University of Washington