Emerging Adulthood Paper

Words: 2049
Pages: 9

Young adulthood is the time where people find out the most about themselves, how they carve out their place in the world, where they’ll live, and what they want to be. Fifty or so years ago, in the time of today’s young adults grandparents, most they would be married and have full-time jobs in their late teens and early twenties. Few would attempt to get education beyond high school or trade school (Arnett J. J., 2016). Most women would be married by 20, and men by 22 (Arnett & Taber, Adolescence terminable and interminable: When does adolescence end?, 1994). Most couples would have their first child a year after marriage. About half a half a century ago, most young adult’s teenaged years would transition smoothly into adult roles that would be their lives for years to come.
The American Psychological Association says young adulthood, also known as emerging adulthood, is the “in-between age” where young adults find out who they are (Munsey, 2006). I will be explaining these five steps in my paper, along with some of the many personal changes that the young adults go through. What is emerging adulthood? The APA has five features they use to describe it:

• Age of identity exploration. Where young adults find out who they are what they want out of work, school, and love.

• Age of
…show more content…
J., 2006). Does this mean that you can apply these features to young adults around the world? It depends. Demographers make good distinction between countries that are developing and countries that are a part of the OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. These countries make up 18% of the world’s population (United Nations Developmental Programme (UNDP), 2011). Developing countries make up the rest of the population, which have less opportunities for education, high income jobs, and more cases of illness and early