Inaugural Meeting Society for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies Clare College, Cambridge, England. September 22-24,

1. Pathways of Transition to Adulthood and Early Adult Well-beingJeylan Mortimer, Minzee Kim, Frank Zhang, and Arturo Baiocchi University of Minnesota, US Inaugural Meeting Society for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies Clare College, Cambridge, England. September 22-24, 2010

2. Centrality of Timing in Life Course Analysis • Age-graded roles, expectations, opportunities, constraints & sanctions (Riley, Neugarten) • Off-time transitions produce negative outcomes • Conceptualization of age grading in era of more standardized life course transitions • Consequences of diverse contemporary transitions to adulthood?

3. Early research focused on timing of single markers, e.g., first job after finishing school • But markers are interlocked, with their meaning dependent on the context in which they occur

4. Questions motivating this paper • Are diverse pathways to adulthood linked to early adult health outcomes and socioeconomic attainment? • Do differences between pathways persist when background (SES, gender, race) is controlled?

5. Data Source: Youth Development Study • 1010 youth followed with near-annual surveys from age 14 (1988) to age 35 (2009) • Age 14-17 in-school surveys 18- mail surveys, including Life History Calendars • Approx. 75% retention in recent years

6. Key measures • Yearly, age 18-30: living with parents school attendance stable FT work, stable other work, unstable work, no work marriage parenting

7. Health Outcomes, age 31-32, 2005 • Depressed mood index (Ex: During the past month, Have you felt depressed? None of the time…all of the time) • Physical health (In general, would you say your health is Excellent…Poor) • Health Problems Index

8. Health problems index During the past 4 weeks, • Have physical health problems caused you difficulty in doing your work or other daily activities? (not at all…extremely) • Have emotional problems (such as feeling depressed or anxious) led you to accomplish less than you would like in your work or other daily activities? • Have physical health or emotional problems interfered with your normal social activities with family, friends, neighbors, or groups? • How much physical pain have you had? (none…very severe)

9. Attainment Outcomes, age 31-32 • College graduation • Bi-weekly wages • Financial strain (stress of financial obligations, difficulty paying bills, burden from debt) • Savings

10. Transition to Adulthood Latent Life Pathways (LLP’s) • 5 LLP’s identified by Eliason, et al., using multi-level latent class analysis • Person-period specification with repeated measures across ages 17-30 • 732 cases; N=10,248 observations in person-year data set (Likelihood function in Vermunt, 2003; Vermunt & Magidson, 2005; estimated in Latent Gold 4.5)

11. 3 Three “traditional” school to work pathways – STW in early-mid twenties (1) STWon-time family formation (.17) family formation early-to-mid 20’s (80% married & 60% parents by age 25) Numerous transitions in short period of time (2) STWdelayed family formation (.20) family formation late 20’s (40% married and 10% parents by 25) More time for human capital acquisition before resource depleting parental role (3) STWnegligible family formation (.27) Only 20% married and 10% parents by age 30 Violating family formation age norms?

12. 2 early parenting pathways Less time for human capital acquisition, high and early resource demands • Early parent, partner, full-time work (.15) Early exit from student role (~age 19); 50% parents by age 18; 90% married by 25; 60% FT work by age 25 • Early parent (.20) Early exit from student role; 60% parents by age 18; little marriage (only 20% married by age 30) and less FT work (<40% by age 25)

13. Life Path Graph of Most Prominent LLP Traditional School-to-Work Transition, Negligible Family Formation

14. Marriage

15. Parenthood

16. LLP’s linked to subjective pathways • LLP’s differ in sense of being “on time,” and in adult identity in mid-twenties STW on time family formation & Early parents with partners & FT work feel more like an adult than STW Negligible, STW Delayed, and early parents without partners

17. LLP’s, Gender and Parent College Graduation

18. Relationships between LLP’s & Health: Depressed Mood

19. Relationships between LLP’s & Health: Self-evaluated Physical Health

20. Relationships between LLP’s & Health: Health Problems

21. LLP’s and Attainment: College Graduation

22. LLP’s and Attainment: Bi-weekly Wages and Savings

23. LLP’s and Attainment Outcomes:financial problems

24. Are there significant relationships between LLP’s and outcomes when social background is controlled?

25. Regression of Health Outcomes on Background and LLP’sRef. group: Early parents without partners

26. Logistic regression of college graduation (yes=1) Ref. group: Early parent without partner

27. OLS regression of bi-weekly wages, savings, and financial problemsRef. group: Early parent without partner

28. OLS and logistic regression with “Negligible” as reference group

29. Summary: Health Outcomes Independent of gender, race, and SES: • Youth who follow early parenting pathways are less physically and mentally healthy at age 31-32 than those who follow traditional STW pathways • Youth who follow the Negligible Family Formation LLP have more health problems than those in STW delayed family formation LLP and on time family formation LLP

30. Summary: Economic Well-being Independent of social background: • STW transition pathways: Greater likelihood of college graduation • Delayed family formation pathway: • More wages, more savings, less financial strain than early parenting pathway • More college graduation, wages and savings than STW negligible family formation pathway

31. Conclusion: Pathways matter • Despite changes in the transition to adulthood and possible erosion of age norm consensus, the timing of transition markers matters for early adult health and economic well-being • Delayed parenting especially beneficial---more time to accrue human capital before resource-depleting parental role • Early parenting as well as negligible family formation problematic

32. Future research • What might explain LLP’s relative advantages? • Selection to LLP’s based on psychological resources? Self-efficacy, especially in economic domain High educational and occupational aspirations

33. Future research • Experiences during the transition to adulthood? Supports from parents (emotional, co-residence, financial) Acute stressors: negative life events

34. Thank you for your attention. Questions? Comments?