Adult Development, Definition, Culture, and Applications

Larry J. Nelson & Charissa S. L. Cheah

Sweeping demographic changes in Western societies over the past several decades have produced significant changes in the manner and timing in which young people make the transition to adulthood. The most notable change in the United States has been the rise in the median age of marriage from about 21 years for females and 23 for males, in 1970, to 25 and 27 for females and males, respectively, in 1996 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997). As a result, young people have an extended period of time in which they do not consider themselves adolescents but do not yet feel they are adults. Indeed, this relatively new and distinct period of development between adolescence and young adulthood has been termed emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000) and is characterized as a time in which individuals believe they have begun the transition to adulthood but do not feel they have taken on While ...

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