Hayford and Furstenberg, January 2005, page 2 of 17
older ages (Furstenberg 2000). For instance, a higher proportion of students completed high
school in the 1990s than in the 1960s, and more students now enroll in post-high school
education, pushing back the average age of school-leaving. The median age at first marriage has
risen steadily since 1970, as has the median age at first birth (Casper and Bianchi 2002; Chen
and Morgan 1991). In addition, the timing of these role changes has become more varied across
individuals and more disordered within individual life courses (Buchmann 1989; Shanahan
2000). In terms of family formation, for example, marriage and first birth have become
increasingly detached from one another. Non-marital birth rates have risen, and the interval
between marriage and first birth has lengthened (Ventura and Bachrach 2000). Transitions from
school to work and from parental homes to independent living are now more frequently reversed.
Young people who moved out of their parental home in the 1980s were much more likely than
the Baby Boom cohorts to return home after living independently, and the proportion of adults
returning to school from full-time work increased (Goldscheider et al. 1999; Jacobs and Stoner-
Eby 1998).
The net result of these changes is that people are taking longer to go through the full set
of transitions into adult roles. In 1960, 30 percent of twenty year old women and 77 percent of
thirty year old women had completed all five major transitions to adulthood (leaving home,
finishing school, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having a child). In
2000, in contrast, only 6 percent of twenty year old women and 46 percent of thirty year old
women had done so (Furstenberg et al. 2004). The implication of these changes in the
achievement of adult roles for the timing and meaning of adolescence is unclear. Some scholars
argue that the delay in the adoption of adult roles means that adolescence is being extended
Convention