When Are You an Adult?

As the age at which people finish their education, marry and have children is increasing, a new class of individual between adolescent and adult is emerging, reports the New York Times. “National surveys reveal that an overwhelming majority of Americans, including younger adults, agree that between 20 and 22, people should be finished with school, working and living on their own. But in practice many people in their 20s and early 30s have not yet reached these traditional milestones.” Frank F. Furstenberg, who leads the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood, says, “We have not developed and strengthened institutions to serve young adults because we’re still living with the archaic idea that people enter adulthood in their late teens or early 20s.”