How Young Adulthood Changed from 1975 to 2016
Young adults reached several familiar milestones later in life than earlier generations, according to a Census Bureau report published in April 2017. Education and work patterns changed too.
The report compared earlier decades with data collected between 2012 and 2016. The figures below describe those historical findings, not current conditions. Some comparisons cover ages 18 to 34; others focus on ages 25 to 34.
Education, work, and family milestones
For adults ages 25 to 34, the report found the following changes:
| Measure | 1975 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 22.8% | 37.0% |
| Full-time, year-round work | 46.0% | 57.3% |
| All four household, family, and labor-force milestones described below | 45% | 24% |
The four milestones were living away from parents, having ever married, living with a child, and being in the labor force. Labor-force participation includes people working or actively looking for work; it is different from the full-time, year-round measure in the row above. These figures come from Figure 5 and Table 2 of the report.
A separate comparison used 1976 and 2014 data. About eight in ten young adults had married before age 30 in 1976; a comparable proportion was reached in the early 40s in 2014. Among women ages 25 to 29, 69% had given birth in 1976. In 2014, a similar share, 71%, was reached among women ages 30 to 34. These findings describe later timing, rather than showing that people had ruled out marriage or children.
What people considered important to adulthood
The report also used the 2012 General Social Survey to examine opinions among adults age 18 and older. Respondents rated these milestones as extremely important to becoming an adult:
| Milestone | Share rating it extremely important |
|---|---|
| Completing formal schooling | 61.5% |
| Being employed full-time | 51.5% |
| Being able to support a family financially | 50.0% |
| No longer living in a parent's household | 25.8% |
Getting married and having a child ranked lower as requirements for adulthood. Respectively, 54.6% and 55.1% rated those milestones as not too important or not at all important. Those answers describe views about becoming an adult, not how much respondents valued their families or whether they intended to become parents.
Living arrangements
In Current Population Survey data, 26% of adults ages 18 to 34 lived with parents in 1975, compared with 31% in 2016. College students living in dormitories were counted as living with their parents for this measure.
The report separately used American Community Survey data to examine independent households. The share of 18- to 34-year-olds in that category fell from 51.0% in 2005 to 40.7% in 2015. The independent category covered people living alone, householders living with a spouse or unmarried partner, and those spouses or partners. It did not mean owning a home. These two surveys use different methods, so their living-arrangement figures should not be treated as interchangeable.
Among 25- to 34-year-olds living independently in 2015, 40.9% had a bachelor's degree or higher and 63.9% worked full-time, year-round. Among the same age group living with parents, about one quarter were neither working nor enrolled in classes. That finding applies to the group living with parents, not to all young adults.
The report discusses education, employment, housing costs, disability, and family responsibilities alongside these patterns. The figures do not establish why a particular person lived with parents or delayed another milestone.
Source: Jonathan Vespa, The Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood: 1975–2016, Current Population Reports P20-579, U.S. Census Bureau, April 2017. See Tables 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 and Figures 2, 3, and 5. You can also download the preserved copy of the report.