On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Public Policy. Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., & Rubén G. Rumbaut

On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Public Policy. Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., & Ruben G. Rumbaut (Eds.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2005. 591 pp. ISBN 0-2267-4889-8. $45.00 (cloth). This timely volume portrays contemporary and historical transitions to adulthood and their variability across place, time, and population subgroups. Several chapters engage current debates about definitions of adulthood and the "newness" of current patterns. The breadth and depth of this volume make it an invaluable guide for scholars, policymakers, and program officers. In Part I, the editors introduce features characterizing the current transition to adulthood-dynamic, complex, prolonged, and diverse with regard to transition sequencing. Furstenberg, Rumbaut, and Settersten foreshadow a recurring theme in the chapters that follow-families of origin serve as the primary safety nets for young people. As is later revealed, this leads to uneven transition experiences. Part II situates the current U.S. transition experience in time and place. Through their broad purview of the past century, Elizabeth Fussell and Frank Furstenberg reveal the impacts of historical events and both structural and cultural change. Consistently through time, youth in their early 20s experience the most turbulent transitions. While transition experiences have become more similar by gender, race, and nativity, troubling differences by race and nativity remain. Fussell and Furstenberg confirm that current experiences are not altogether new. Delayed marriage patterns, in particular, are comparable to early century patterns. Fussell and Anne Gauthier, by comparing family formation patterns in the United States and other developed nations, show how women's experiences are influenced by the structure of the welfare state. Lawrence Wu and Jui-Chung Allen Li jointly consider marriage and childbearing trends over time. While most women follow traditional patterns, a substantial and increasing minority do not. The authors expose deep historical routes of this diversity. Interestingly, a compositional shift has occurred so that more women now occupy the set of diverse patterns that has long existed. The next chapters explore changes across the latter part of the 20th century in time use and attitudes. Gauthier and Furstenberg show that gender patterns in time use have become more similar in almost all groups. They also expose a universal trend toward increased time spent with children. Tom Smith inspects the generation gap in an impressive range of attitudes from the 1970s to the 1990s. Compared to older adults, contemporary young people are more disconnected from society, more cynical and negative about people, and more liberal. Overall, however, the generation gap in attitudes has narrowed through historical time. Part III highlights passages to adulthood. Michael Shanahan, Erik Porfeli, Jeylan Mortimer, and Lance Erickson lead off with a compelling look at subjective adulthood with a large, random, regionally representative sample. These authors take on a central debate on whether adulthood is best marked by individualistic criteria, such as maturity and independent decision making, or demographic markers, such as home leaving, school completion, and marriage. In fact, both personal qualities and social role occupancy make one more likely to feel like an adult. This will be a critical study in adjudicating between differing views of the origins of adult identity. The next three chapters uncover variable "pathways" to adulthood, using similar criteria (romantic involvement, residential status, parenthood, employment, and educational attainment). The chapters by Ted Mouw, and Wayne Osgood, Gretchen Ruth, Jacquelynne Eccles, Janis Jacobs, and Bonnie Barber reveal six pathways; Gary Sandefur, Jennifer Eggerling-Boeck, and Hyunjoon Park find four pathways. Differences in the number and character of pathways may be due to variability in data sources, ages and cohorts, measurement, or methods. …