Staying Afloat: Young Adults’ Familial and Educational Strategies in the Era of Privatized Risk

• In Event: 1483 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 16. Income Inequality, Market Insecurity, and Risk

Abstract

In recent decades individual Americans have taken on economic risk previously carried by the government, and dramatic changes in the economy are often connected to changes in meanings of family and intimacy. Scholars study how families are affected by these changes, but this individualization in the economy has partially caused young Americans today to postpone family formation. I look at two financial strategies for dealing with the privatization of risk: the pursuit of a graduate degree and a delay in marriage. I present census data from 1950 to the present to analyze patterns in these two financial strategies across races, genders, and decades. Data indicate that both Black and white women are making great strides in graduate education, and that white Americans and those with more education are the most likely to ultimately get married. I find, over time, there is a growing population of young, never-married Americans who are pursuing graduate degrees. I therefore argue that the scholarship on how families deal with financial risk needs to be expanded to those transitioning to adulthood, for whom delay in family formation is itself an economic strategy.

Author

• Molly Sapia, Temple University