Forever young? young people's conception of adulthood: the Swedish case

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of young people's subjective conception of attainment of adulthood. Setting a process, as well as a multidimensional perspective, the analysis enables the study of both role transitions and issues of individual maturity in attainment of adulthood. Usually, after completing specific role transitions, young people are regarded as adult members of society. Due to social changes it is of interest to study whether young people themselves also put the same emphasis on these role transitions in attainment of adulthood. Drawing on data from the Swedish Board of Youth Affairs containing 3200 respondents aged 16–29, the results indicate that young people who have completed role transitions assign them less value for the importance of adult status. However, becoming a parent is a role transition that is given great importance and is also in relation to the issue of responsibility.

Notes

Correspondence to: Annika Westberg, Department of Sociology, Umeå University, S‐901 87 Umeå, Sweden. Tel: [phone]; Email: [email protected]. The Swedish Council for Research in Social Sciences and Humanitites (HSFR) financially supported this research.

In the literature, different concepts related to what here is called existential transitions are used to define individual features and development. The concepts revolve around concepts such as ‘moral’ (Hutson & Jenkins 1987, 1989; Arnett 1997) and ‘maturation’ (Greene et al. 1992, Tilton‐Weaver et al. 2001). Critics may be opposed to the mentioned concepts, however; even though ‘existential’ is a laden concept as well, it seems to be a concept that manages to capture the essence of the three variables—responsibility, identity and knowing what one wants—that are of interest for this purpose.

Analysis of the non‐responses showed no systematic bias. For details concerning this analysis, see Ungdomsstyrelsen (1998).

There are a few reflections connected to the variables that should be kept in mind. First, the indexes show an important difference in their differing levels. The social transitions are concrete and can vary in length of time. For example, parenthood is a transition with greater future implications than is gaining legal age. Second, the objective of the question ‘When do you think one is an adult’ may be interpreted differently by the respondents. It may be interpreted either by reference to one's opinion of oneself or that held by society (i.e., the perceived prevailing social norms).

The question of how to measure social class is an ongoing debate, where one can study both subjective and objective factors (Cigéhn 2001). In this study, the subjective measure is used, which is the self‐perception of the parental home. In the analyses, working class and middle class were coded as separate indicators, while upper middle class and upper class were merged into one indicator.

The categories are: demographical (gaining legal age and residential independence from parents), family formation (co‐habiting/married and parenthood), economical (having finished education and financial support of oneself), and existential (taking responsibility for one's actions, knowing what one wants and having found one's identity).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annika Westberg

Correspondence to: Annika Westberg, Department of Sociology, Umeå University, S‐901 87 Umeå, Sweden. Tel: [phone]; Email: [email protected]. The Swedish Council for Research in Social Sciences and Humanitites (HSFR) financially supported this research.