Gender & Society

Gender & Society
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The Markers and Meanings of Growing Up: Contemporary Young

Women's Transition From Adolescence to Adulthood
Pamela Aronson
Gender & Society 2008; 22; 56
DOI: 10.1177/0891243207311420
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distribution.
THE MARKERS AND MEANINGS OF
GROWING UP
Contemporary Young Women’s Transition
From Adolescence to Adulthood
PAMELA ARONSON
University of Michigan–Dearborn
Growing up in the shadow of the women’s movement dramatically influences how young
women think about their life course transitions. Although prior research has examined the
objective markers of adulthood, we know little about how young women themselves per-
ceive these markers. This article examines the subjective meanings of the transition to
adulthood among 42 young women who were part of the Youth Development Study. While
interviewees saw becoming a parent and becoming financially independent as reflecting
an adult orientation, completing schooling was tied to class-differentiated views of grow-
ing up. In addition, respondents did not see beginning full-time work and getting married
as associated with growing up. Three key themes emerged as young women discussed their
lives: independence/self-reliance, self-development, and uncertainty. These themes suggest
that young women are partially “living feminism” (bringing aspects of feminist ideology
and attitudes into their lives) as they make the transition to adulthood.
Keywords: adolescence; transition to adulthood; young women; identity; life course;

class differences; feminism; women’s movement
Grow up? Not so fast. Meet the twixters. They’re not kids anymore, but
they’re not adults either. Why a new breed of young people won’t—or
can’t?—settle down.
Grossman, 2005
A recent cover of Time magazine introduced us to the “twixters,” young

people who are increasingly delaying the movement into adulthood
(Grossman 2005). Before Time noticed, researchers had been studying the
transition to adulthood of Generation X, Generation Y, and their prede-
cessors primarily in terms of the timing, sequencing, and effects of five
objective life events: completing education, entering the labor force,
becoming financially independent, getting married, and becoming a parent.
GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol. 22 No. 1, February 2008 56-82
DOI: 10.1177/0891243207311420
© 2008 Sociologists for Women in Society
56
distribution.
Aronson / YOUNG WOMEN’S TRANSITION FROM ADOLESCENCE TO ADULTHOOD 57
Although recent studies have also considered aspects of the subjective

transition to adulthood, they have not examined their gender- and class-
based dimensions. While the process of becoming an adult has been
changing for everyone as a result of economic conditions, the women’s
movement has altered the way that young women, in particular, see them-
selves. Even though they may be ambivalent about the term feminism
(Aronson 2003), young women coming of age in the shadow of the
women’s movement1 bring feminism into their lives. This study examines
the unique experiences of young women, highlighting how they give
meaning to their experiences through perspectives absorbed from the
women’s movement.
How do young women themselves perceive the objective transition
markers typically assumed to constitute adulthood? In what ways do these
subjective understandings reflect the legacy of the women’s movement in
young women’s lives? Does the subjective assessment of these markers
reveal class differences? What other themes emerge as young women
reflect on their own transitions to adulthood? In-depth interviews with 42
young women from diverse backgrounds2 reveal that the objective transi-
tions used in life course research are neither all subjectively relevant nor
universally applicable. Partially because many young women are doing
what I call “living feminism” as they craft their life course pathways, their
subjective experience of the transition to adulthood is out of sync with the
way life course researchers have studied it.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Young women’s life course decisions today take place in the context of
increased opportunities yet continuing discrimination, a wide range of
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This research was supported by a National Research Service Award
from the National Institute of Mental Health (Training Program in Identity, Self, Role, and
Mental Health—PHST 32 MH 14588, Sheldon Stryker, principal investigator), the
National Institute of Mental Health (MH 42843, Jeylan T. Mortimer, principal investiga-
tor), the Personal Narratives Award from the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies,
University of Minnesota, and a Graduate School Block Grant Stipend Award from the
Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota. The author thanks Ronald Aronson,
Dana Britton, Barbara Laslett, Jane McLeod, Jeylan T. Mortimer, Sheldon Stryker, and
several anonymous reviewers who provided comments and suggestions on earlier versions
of this article. The author also thanks a University of Michigan–Dearborn writing group,
including Bill DeGenaro, Ilir Miteza, Diane Oliver, and Elizabeth Rohan, for providing
feedback for revision. This article was formerly titled “Blurring Life Course Stages: Young
Women’s Transition From Adolescence to Adulthood in the Contemporary Era.”

distribution.
58 GENDER & SOCIETY / February 2008
choices yet a lack of social and political support for those choices, and a
backlash against feminism yet the incorporation of feminist principles into
people’s lives (Stacey 1991). While some have suggested that the women’s
movement as an active social movement is in “abeyance,” feminist atti-
tudes and ideology are not (Taylor and Rupp 1993). Although many young
women (especially those from disadvantaged life pathways and back-
grounds) are ambivalent about the label feminist, they support feminist
ideologies (Aronson 2003).
According to Stacey (1991, 265), feminism has “unwittingly” colluded
with a postindustrial economy to produce complex “postmodern gender
strategies.” These “strategies” include women’s appropriation of feminist
ideology for their own purposes. Stacey pinpoints several key ideologies
expressed by her interviewees that have been borrowed from the women’s
movement: support for alternatives to marriage, women’s rejection of sub-
servience, entrance into male-dominated occupations and competition for
economic rewards, men’s participation in domestic work, self-reliance
and autonomy, and self-respect. Although not all women fully embrace
these ideologies, many bring aspects of feminism into their everyday
lives. As Stacey (1991, 16) puts it, “Even those seemingly hostile to fem-
inism have been selectively appropriating feminist principles and prac-
tices and fusing these, patchwork style, with old and new gender, kinship,
and cultural patterns.” In fact, feminist themes of women’s independence
and self-development have infused nearly every aspect of our culture
(Stacy 1991) and young women define their identities in ways that defy
traditional gender expectations (Gerson 2002). For young women grow-
ing up after the women’s movement, “feminism is the whole climate of
their lives, the air they breathe” (Jong 1998, xv). This article examines the
ways young women incorporate some of these feminist principles into
their lives during the transition to adulthood in such areas as work, marriage,
and parenthood.
While the women’s movement has influenced the realm of employ-
ment, the transformation of young women’s work lives remains incom-
plete. The majority of women now work outside of the home (U.S.
Census Bureau 2002), providing the benefits of multiple life possibilities
(Giele and Holst 2004). Adolescent girls have higher educational expecta-
tions than do boys (Mahaffy and Ward 2002) and a “have it all” approach
to work and family (Sidel 1990). At the same time, employment often fails
to alter the traditional responsibilities associated with being a wife and
mother (Hochschild 1989). Because most workplaces and work–family
policies do not adequately accommodate family responsibilities, many

distribution.
couples make traditional gender choices when they have children

(Hochschild 2000; Singley and Hynes 2005). While young men do not
expect family to affect career aspirations, women “are talking career but
thinking job” (Machung 1989, 52–53): They expect the timing of child-
bearing to influence educational attainment (Mahaffy and Ward 2002),
exhibit greater career uncertainty and ambivalence (Orrange 2003), and
plan to “scale back” on their careers to adjust for family responsibilities
(Gerson 2002; Moen and Orrange 2002).
The women’s movement and economic changes have also altered
women’s experience of marriage (Coontz 2005) and parenthood. As
women’s age at marriage has risen (U.S. Census Bureau 2000), family
“blueprints” have changed from gender-differentiated companionship in
the 1950s to an androgynous emphasis on self-fulfillment, independence,
flexible roles, and intimacy (Cancian 1987). Marriage is no longer the
“master event” that determines sexual activity, adult work life, and the
transition to parenthood (Coontz 2005). Coupled with a high divorce rate,
and due in part to economic insecurity (Shanahan 2000) and cohabitation,
there is now a “widespread awareness of the fragility of marriage” (White
1999, 63). Many adults now agree that marriage is not necessary to
become an adult (Furstenberg et al. 2004). Feminism has contributed to a
cultural “redefinition of marriage,” in which marriage is “far less neces-
sary for social personhood among American women” (Edin and Kefalas
2005, 200–201).
The women’s movement has also led to changes in parenthood.
Women delay parenthood, and it is increasingly decoupled from marriage
(Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, and Morgan 1987). More than one-third of
all births are to unmarried women (U.S. Census Bureau 2002). Poor
women, in particular, choose single parenthood because they place a high
value on children and view marriage as an achievement that can come
only after other goals are accomplished (Edin and Kefalas 2005). In fact,
middle-class women want to reach maturity to be “ready” for motherhood,
while working-class and poor women see themselves as becoming an
adult “through having a child” (McMahon 1995, 266).
Although the women’s movement is obviously not single-handedly
responsible for these dramatic changes in marriage and parenthood, it has
played a profound role. However, the effect of feminism is complicated by
the way that women characterize their experiences, as they themselves do
not always see the role of feminism in their lives. Reflecting backlash and
depoliticization, Stacey (1991) calls their appropriation of feminism
“semiconscious,” and I agree. But what does it look like in practice for

distribution.
young women to incorporate ideas from the women’s movement into their
lives? What does it mean to become an adult woman in the shadow of the
women’s movement? This article brings together feminist and life course
theories to examine these very questions.
Studies of the transition to adulthood typically focus on the timing and
sequencing of five transitions that have together been considered to be
“markers” of an adult status: completing schooling, beginning full-time
work, financial independence, getting married, and becoming a parent. Yet
these markers do not capture the complexity of the present era. While
these markers might have existed in a stable, reliable way through the
middle of the twentieth century, movement into adulthood has become
extended (Arnett 2000), more variable in sequencing (Shanahan 2000),
and more “individualized” (Buchmann 1989). A rapidly changing global
economy has resulted in an insecure employment market, deteriorating
opportunities (Hill and Yeung 1999), a decline in lifelong occupations,
career instability (Buchmann 1989), and difficulty establishing career
paths (Mortimer 2003).
Recent research has challenged the assumption that young people
themselves view the five objective life course markers as representing the
achievement of adulthood. Arnett (1997) demonstrated that respondents
viewed only financial and residential independence as necessary for an
adult status. Instead of seeing the other objective transitions in this way,
they embrace intangible, psychological, and individualistic orientations as
indicative of adulthood (e.g., the ability to “decide on own beliefs and val-
ues independently of parents or other influences”; Arnett 1997, 10).
Another study found that the completion of family transition markers,
especially parenthood, was related to feeling like an adult (Shanahan et al.
2005). Benson and Furstenberg (2007) found that parenthood was signif-
icant for women but not for men, while cohabiting and getting married
were not associated with feeling like an adult. The combination of transi-
tions also mattered: Full-time employment was not enough in itself to lead
to feeling like an adult—it had to be coupled with residential indepen-
dence (Benson and Furstenberg 2007). Johnson, Berg, and Sirotzki (2007)
found racial and class differences in whether young people felt like adults,
suggesting that delaying adult feelings may be a luxury of more advan-
taged youth.
Several interview studies have recently examined this topic, but they
have not theorized the unique experiences of young women, nor have they
examined class differences. Hartmann and Swartz (2007) found that
young people define adulthood in terms of a constellation or accumulation

distribution.
of roles rather than the achievement of a single marker. Although inter-

viewees discussed individualistic qualities and characteristics (e.g., matu-
rity and responsibility), they directly linked them to social roles and the
achievement of particular statuses. Similarly, the white, middle-class
young adults studied by Andrew and her collaborators (2007, 226) did not
reject objective markers as irrelevant but instead saw them as “conduits”
that brought about “internal and individualistic changes.” Although these
privileged respondents saw employment and completion of college as a
key to becoming an adult, parenthood was not necessarily indicative of
adulthood, and romantic relationships were unnecessary for an adult sta-
tus. For them, the loss of a parental “safety net,” responsibility, indepen-
dence, and a stable identity were key issues (Andrew et al. 2007, 235).
The importance of school completion may fade in importance over time,
as adults looking back retrospectively focus instead on the establishment
of responsibility (Pallas 2007).
Although prior studies help us to understand aspects of the transition to
adulthood, the lack of attention to women’s experiences may result in a
disjuncture between women’s lives and researchers’ representations of
their lives (Smith 1987, 57). As Smith (1987, 122), suggests, research
often fails to examine women’s experiences “from inside.” Stacey and
Thorne (1985, 306) point out that we need to do more than simply docu-
ment women’s experiences; we need to shift existing paradigms and
rethink our “basic conceptual frameworks.” Although the objective mark-
ers approach to life course research may provide a useful “conceptual
organization” (Smith 1987, 49), it tells us little about how contemporary
young women understand and make meaning of the process of coming of
age in the shadow of the women’s movement.
When we begin with women’s experiences, we often learn that previ-
ous categories of study are inadequate for understanding women’s lives.
The present project looks skeptically at the assumption that objective
markers are automatically indicative of becoming an adult woman and
instead examines the subjective meanings of these markers from the per-
spective of young women themselves. When we do so, we learn that
focusing on objective markers obscures three themes that dominate young
women’s understandings of their own lives: uncertainty (especially in the
areas of work and four-year college completion), self-development, and
independence/self-reliance. These three themes, while indicative of the
complex transition to adulthood faced by both young men and women
today, reveal the influence of feminism on women’s lives.

distribution.
METHOD
Participants were part of the Youth Development Study (YDS), an

ongoing longitudinal study of adolescent development and the transition
to adulthood. The YDS panel was randomly chosen from a list of enrolled
ninth grade students in St. Paul, Minnesota. Respondents completed sur-
veys annually, with the first year (ninth grade) in 1988 and the eighth year
in 1995. Of the original 1,000 panel members who took part in the first
year of data collection, the YDS retained 77.5 percent over this eight-year
period. When it began, the YDS sample was representative of students in
the St. Paul public school district (Mortimer 2003). Although attrition
over time has resulted in slightly greater numbers of white, U.S.-born, and
female respondents than in the original sample, the sample is still quite
similar in class background, school engagement and achievement, labor
force involvement, and mental health adjustment (Mortimer 2003).
The present interview subsample draws on information obtained
through the eighth wave of data collection, when the 448 female respon-
dents were mostly 21 and 22 years old. Following Glaser and Strauss’s
(1967) suggestions for theoretical sampling, I chose interviewees to
represent trajectories of experience and to obtain class and racial diversity.
I targeted three mutually exclusive groups: those who had already become
parents, non-parents who had spent a significant amount of time in post-
secondary education (having attended a four-year college or university for
at least eight months annually in three of the four years following high
school), and non-parents who had considerable investment in full-time
work in the years following high school (see Table 1).
Of the 138 women who were invited to be interviewed, 42 consented
by returning a postcard indicating their interest. There were some demo-
graphic differences between those who consented to participate and those
who did not, with the highest affirmative response rate from white,
middle-class women who had pursued a college education (see Aronson
1999). Interviews with these 42 took place between 1996 and 1997. These
women, age 23 to 24 at the time of the interviews, were diverse; one-third
were women of color, and they had a wide range of socioeconomic back-
grounds (see Table 2). At the time of the interviews, the interview sub-
sample was quite comparable in class and racial background to the YDS
sample overall (see Aronson 1999).
Interviews were conducted face to face in a place chosen by the partici-
pant. Typically, I interviewed women in their homes, although I conducted
some interviews in coffee shops or other locations. The interviews were
tape-recorded and transcribed. The interview guide covered a range of

distribution.
TABLE 1: Transition Patterns of Youth Development Study (YDS) Women

and Interviewees
Percentage of
Percentage in Interviewees in
Group YDS Sample n Interviewed Each Group
In school 28.6 15 35.7

Parents 30.6 14 33.3
Labor force 40.8 13 31.0
Total 100.0 42 100.0
TABLE 2: Number of Interviewees by Race and Class Background
Racial Background
African
Class Background 3 White American Asian Biracial Hispanic Total
Working 7 2 1 2 1 13
Middle 13 3 2 2 0 20
Upper-middle 8 0 1 0 0 9
Total 28 5 4 4 1 42
themes (see Aronson 1999), and I allowed interviewees space to bring up

issues they found important. The interviews lasted between 45 minutes
and three hours, although most lasted one and one-half hours. After each
interview, I wrote field notes, including the main themes, my reflections,
and emerging research questions. I analyzed the transcriptions according
to Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) inductive principles for constructing grounded
theory. For example, the themes of uncertainty, independence/self-reliance,
and self-development that emerged through the interviews were coded
within each of the life spheres in which they were present. A qualitative
data analysis program facilitated the identification and organization of
emergent themes.
As this article will illustrate, although the interviewees viewed financial
independence and becoming a parent as reflecting an adult orientation,
completing schooling was tied to class-differentiated views of growing
up, and respondents did not view beginning full-time work and getting
married as indicative of adulthood in and of themselves. Three additional
themes emerged when interviewees discussed their own perceptions of the
objective markers: uncertainty (especially in the area of work and four-year
college completion), self-development, and independence/self-reliance.
These themes reflect the ways that young women are “living feminism.”

distribution.
MARKERS SUBJECTIVELY ASSOCIATED

WITH GROWING UP
Financial Independence
In earlier eras, young women’s financial independence from their par-
ents was often associated with connections to men, including marriage
(Modell 1989). Yet for the women I interviewed, achieving independence
along this dimension was much more likely to be an individual accom-
plishment. One-third of the interviewees lived with their parents at the
time of the interview, and a total of one-half of the interviewees consid-
ered themselves to be financially dependent on their parents. The middle-
and upper-middle-class interviewees and those who had pursued postsec-
ondary education were somewhat more likely than their counterparts to
significantly rely on their parents for financial assistance. The women of
color were evenly distributed between seeing themselves as financially
dependent and independent. Whether or not they felt that they had
achieved financial independence, these women considered it an important
feature of growing up.
Those who were financially independent emphasized the self-sufficiency
and competence of being on their “own”: having their own apartment or
house, car, and money. For example, one middle-class biracial (African
American and white) woman told me that she was proud of “living on
my own, taking care of myself, [and] earning my own money.” A work-
ing-class Korean American woman said: “It’s a good feeling” to be able
to take “responsibility for all my own finances.” As is common during this
life phase, this process was often wrought with struggle. For one working-
class Hispanic woman, this struggle included bankruptcy. Similarly, a
middle-class white interviewee moved into her own apartment at age 20
when she was working full-time yet acquired a great deal of credit card
debt, resulting in “stress” and “anxiety attacks.” By the time of the inter-
view, she felt that she had overcome what she called a “disease”:
I am my own person. I don’t need the support of anybody else, at least

financially. That’s a big, big step. . . . I still know people [who] . . . live at
home. They’re driving their parents’ car. . . . I feel . . . pretty proud of
myself. . . . I have my own place. I have my own car.4
Those who were financially dependent felt discouraged about their

situation because they did not feel like adults. For example, a white
middle-class woman said that her parents “give me a whole lot of freedom
at home” but that living with them results in not feeling “like an adult.”

distribution.
Although they often felt “ready to move out” (in the words of a working-
class white single mother), many lacked the necessary resources as a
result of the combination of debt (from credit cards and school loans) and
low-wage jobs. One white middle-class single mother, who lived with her
parents and worked full-time but lived just above the poverty line, told me
that she did not want to “be struggling forever.” A working-class white
college graduate who earned “a decent salary” was in debt as a result of
school loans. She was “not thrilled” about living with her parents and
wanted her age to move a little “faster”: She wished she could “bypass the
20s, and just get to 30, because that’s when all of your hard work starts
paying off.”
Regardless of whether they were able to become financially indepen-
dent, it is striking that the desire to do so on their own is strongly linked
with growing up for these young women. Interviewees did not see mar-
riage or reliance on men as a way to obtain financial independence. For
example, one upper-middle-class white interviewee described the experi-
ences of women of previous generations as follows: “You have to get mar-
ried because you have to have a man that’s going to support you
financially, and that’s the only way you can survive.” She characterized
her generation as much more independent from the financial need to get
married: “There are many women [who] . . . marry out of love and com-
panionship and would feel very independent having [their] own career and
being able to support themselves.”
Although most of the women discussed the expectation of financial
independence in terms of opportunities for women’s independence from
men, a few women recognized the strains associated with financial inde-
pendence. For example, one upper-middle-class white woman told me that
the obstacles and opportunities that young women face today are “the
same”:
Whether it be the expectation to have to be self-sufficient and to be econom-

ically independent, to be in the work force and for mothering to be a sec-
ondary job. All the things that have come with the women’s movement and
the debunking of the 50s nuclear family that’s happening right now. . . . I
think that all those things are all obstacles and opportunities.
Thus, this self-reliant and self-sufficient approach reflects an incorpo-

ration of feminist attitudes into women’s lives. As I will discuss later, this
form of “living feminism” may reflect views about the fragility of mar-
riage and its declining centrality in women’s lives.

distribution.
Becoming a Parent
Previous research has established parenthood as one of the most impor-
tant objective markers of becoming an adult for heterosexual women.
One-third (14) of my interview sample were mothers, with only two mar-
ried prior to parenthood. None of the mothers were cohabiting, although
a few were involved in romantic relationships. Although the working-class
women were equally likely to be parents, only one-fourth of the women
who were middle class or higher had become parents. Women of color and
white women had similar experiences: About one-third of each group had
become parents. Thus, becoming a parent was a class-differentiated, but
not a race-differentiated, transition. As I explain below, the subjective
understandings of becoming a parent reveal that both mothers and non-
mothers are “living feminism,” although in very different ways.
The majority of the mothers got pregnant accidentally, typically during
high school. Although they viewed their unplanned pregnancies as the
result of immature behavior, they believed the process of becoming a par-
ent made them become responsible. They used words such as mature and
grown-up to describe the impact of becoming a parent and said they
devoted their lives to parenting “24 [hours a day], 7 [days a week].” For
example, one working-class white woman described how motherhood
changed her plans to go away to college and ended her “carefree” teenage
years. As she put it, “Having my son was a major turning point in my
life. . . . It changed my entire life. It changed all the plans that I ever had
had for myself. It really made me more mature, made me grow up a lot.”
A white upper-middle-class woman who had been a teen mother experi-
enced a transformation as a result of becoming a parent:
I was doing really bad in school. I was ditching [school]. . . . Before I got
pregnant . . . I was having a lot of problems with drugs, like, cocaine and
marijuana and drinking a lot. . . . The day I found out [about the pregnancy]
I said, “I’m not doing this anymore.” . . . And I quit, that was it. . . . From
that day forward, it’s like I grew up.
Quite powerfully, she said that if she had not gotten pregnant, “I’d be
dead. . . . Either that or dying.” Thus, becoming a mother changed her life
from its self-destructive path (see also Edin and Kafalas 2005).
For these women, becoming a single mother was associated with inde-
pendence from the men in their lives, who were often ambivalent about
fatherhood. The 14 mothers accepted sole responsibility and account-
ability for their pregnancies and their children; only two saw marriage or
serious commitment to the baby’s father as a serious alternative. For

distribution.
example, one middle-class white single mother said that her son “was
very much wanted by me. Which, not so much by his father. . . . He had
his choice. I told him to go, then, if he wanted to. I was going to have a
baby, and he could go away, and that would be the end of it for him.” A
working-class white single mother described her decision-making
process as follows:
I knew exactly what I was going to do. . . . I was going to keep [the
baby]. . . . I had to talk to his father, and at that time we were both very
young. And the first thing he wanted to do was have an abortion. And I told
him that would not be the right thing. . . . So I decided to have [the baby],
and I didn’t know if he would be around or not, but I knew that was the right
thing for me. And I thought, that’s fine if he doesn’t want to have anything
to do with the child, then he doesn’t.
Here, we see that young women’s parenting decisions are made indepen-
dently from men.
Although most parents did not consciously recognize that their inde-
pendence from men in single parenthood is connected to the legacy of the
women’s movement, some did recognize that the ability to become a par-
ent on their own represents new gender norms. For example, a middle-
class African American single mother described experiences with
unplanned pregnancies in earlier eras as follows:
If you got pregnant, whoever [the father] was, by God you got married,
and that was the end of it. I don’t care if you hated him. I don’t care if you
didn’t even know his last name. You know, if you got pregnant, you got
married, you had a family, and you so-called lived happily ever after, even
if you were never happy with him in the first place.
In contrast, she described many of the choices women have today in the
following quote:
I think now a days more women are realizing that, “I do have the option to
direct my life in the way that I want to.” Just because I’m a woman does not
mean that I have to have kids and I have to be a housewife. . . . I can go out
and if I want, I could have children, and be a part of the working force, and
be the breadwinner in my household. It’s okay for me to do that. It’s okay
if I choose not to be married. Or if I do choose to be married, it’s still okay
for me to make more [money] than my husband.
Here, we see an awareness of the effect of changing gender norms on,

among other issues, women’s choices about single parenthood.

distribution.
The interviewees who were not yet parents also viewed parenthood as
a key marker of growing up. In fact, these women used phrases such as not
ready, too young, and not grown up enough to describe their reasons for
not having children. For example, one upper-middle-class white woman
said, “I feel that I need a more solid foundation for myself before I can
think of providing for somebody else.” As another middle-class white
woman put it, “I’m not old enough to have children. I’m only 23. I can
barely take care of me.” For those who planned to be parents, delay was
linked to finding the right partner, feeling secure in their current relation-
ship, getting married, completing schooling, establishing their careers,
and/or having their finances in order. One middle-class white woman who
was applying to medical school at the time of the interview revealed a
“close call” with an unplanned pregnancy when she was in college. This
incident made her subsequently more careful about birth control, as she
thought that an unplanned pregnancy would have drastically altered her
educational and career trajectory.
Thus, both the parents and non-parents are “living feminism,” although
they do so in different ways. The women who were parents, disproportion-
ately single mothers from working-class backgrounds, emphasized their
independence and self-sufficiency in the childrearing process. This
approach reflects cultural changes in how women think about marriage and
parenthood (Edin and Kefalas 2005). As women have absorbed the idea
that they can and should live independently from men, they unconsciously
apply this perspective to many areas of their lives. Those who were not yet
mothers, disproportionately from advantaged backgrounds, did not view
parenthood as the only important route of self-development. At the same
time, both mothers and non-mothers viewed becoming a parent as an
important turning point toward growing up. Thus, although motherhood is
not the only avenue available to women, it does remain an important sub-
jective developmental milestone to heterosexual women.
COMPLETING EDUCATION:
CLASS-BASED DIFFERENCES IN GROWING UP
Class differences reflected larger trends in postsecondary education

stratification (Aronson, forthcoming): The interviewees who completed
their education at high school graduation or pursued community college
or vocational degrees were disproportionately from working-class back-
grounds, whereas middle-class women disproportionately pursued four-
year degrees. Subjective understandings of the goals and outcomes of

distribution.
education included two primary themes, with roughly equal numbers tak-
ing each approach: One group of women emphasized the ways that their
schooling provided a credential and prepared them for their subsequent
full-time work, whereas the other group focused on identity exploration
during college. The credential-oriented women disproportionately attended
two-year (or shorter) programs and were more likely than the other group
to be mothers and full-time workers. Nearly half were from working-class
backgrounds, and about 40 percent were women of color. In contrast,
reflecting the theme of self-development, identity-exploration-oriented
women disproportionately attended four-year colleges. Only two in this
group were already parents. Nearly all were from at least a middle-class
background, and 30 percent were women of color.
When the first group of interviewees talked about their postsecondary
education, they focused on gaining specific skills that would move them
into the work world and provide credentials that would help them make
specific advancements in their jobs. For example, one working-class
Hispanic woman who attended a secretarial program at a business college
said that her school “really prepared you for what it was going to be like
once you started working full-time.” She contrasted this approach with
identity exploration: “I don’t want to go to school and be one of those
people [who] . . . takes 15 classes and still doesn’t know what they want
to do.” Similarly, a working-class white mother emphasized the credential
aspect of education: “I like school. I like it a lot. But I also don’t have the
money or the time to waste doing something that is not going to work out
for me.” For this group, graduations were often significant events. One
working-class African American woman, for example, dropped out of
high school at age 16, but later received her GED. She described her feel-
ings about graduation as follows: “Everybody was preparing for me to
graduate. And it was a big deal to everybody in my whole house. . . . It
was wonderful.” School completion was a significant achievement par-
tially because it led to work skills. As a middle-class white woman said of
her 18-month retail training program, “I was eager to get back out in the
work force and start doing what I had learned at school.”
In contrast, identity exploration, self-development, and uncertainty were
themes disproportionately expressed by middle-class interviewees who
had attended four-year colleges. Reflecting normative middle-class ideol-
ogy, these women never made what one interviewee called “a conscious
decision” to go to college—they assumed that it was the appropriate path
for them. Once in college, they focused on self-development through the
exploration of their interests, talents, and identities. As a middle-class
Vietnamese American woman put it,

distribution.
During undergrad you’re . . . expected to explore different fields. . . . I was

one of those [people], taking a lot of classes just for fun. Like this is the
only time in my life where I’ll be able to take ballroom dancing . . . and
skating. . . . I really didn’t think of the practical component because it was
just something that you did after high school, not that it’s something you’re
supposed to develop a career with.
This exploration is consciously linked with the expansion of women’s

opportunities, which interviewees contrasted with those of earlier genera-
tions. For example, an upper-middle-class white woman said that “women
today have far greater opportunities to get ahead.” She described her
mother’s generation as follows:
My mother was told, when she was applying to graduate school, that she
should get her teaching certificate and be content with being a teacher. But
she didn’t want to get that. She did get her teaching certificate, but she
didn’t want to be a career teacher. . . . She was told point blank that she had
too high expectations for herself. . . . Whereas now, it’s kind of come 180
degrees, that . . . if a woman decides not to go to college, she is really selling
herself short.
Thus, expanded career and educational opportunities resulting from the

women’s movement have provided a context in which middle-class
women can focus on self-development during college.
Graduating from college was a difficult and stressful experience for
many of these interviewees, who described their feelings about graduating
with words such as panic, fearful, down, lost, nervous, scary, and fright-
ened. Distress resulted because they did not feel like adults and were con-
cerned about their own career uncertainty. One woman, who is middle
class and white, told me that she “sabotaged” her graduation to avoid hav-
ing to get “a real full-time job.” Another woman, also white and middle
class, said that she expected to feel “magically” different but that she “didn’t
feel a whole lot more grown up.” One working-class white woman
reported “panic sessions.” She said that graduating made her think “‘What
am I going to do with the rest of my life?’ Like it was a big gaping hole!
. . . Like I could just step in and never be heard from again!”
Embedded in these conceptualizations of postsecondary education, we
see a class-differentiated legacy of the women’s movement. Working-class
women, who have historically had less choice than middle-class women
about whether or not to work, viewed work as a given. Education in this
context is a means to an end: It supports and enhances work. College-
educated women, in contrast, emphasize self-development and uncertainty.

distribution.
Although economic conditions and changing educational requirements for

jobs play a large role in creating uncertainty and delaying the transition to
adulthood, the theme of self-development reflects a middle-class way of
“living feminism.”
MARKERS SUBJECTIVELY DISTINCT

FROM GROWING UP
Beginning Full-Time Work

In contrast to perceptions of education, where uncertainty was more
characteristic of the middle class, work uncertainty was not class differ-
entiated. Two-thirds (28) of the women in my sample were working full-
time, while the rest were working part-time, were in school and not
working, or were out of the labor force for other reasons (e.g., caring for
young children). One-fourth (7) of the full-time workers discussed feeling
established and satisfied with their current jobs, while the rest emphasized
work uncertainty.
Those who felt established and satisfied with their current jobs and
fields had a wide range of life experiences and types of employment:
Some were mothers and some were college graduates, and they worked in
fields such as teaching, restaurant service, child care, and journalism. One
white single mother from a middle-class background described her orien-
tation as follows: “I’m at a gas station where I’m committed [to a] 401K,
and that’s where I’m going to be and that’s it. . . . I work at a gas station
and people always [think], hell, that’s usually more of a temporary job,
something you do to get somewhere else. But for me, this is what I’m
good at.” Similarly, a middle-class white college graduate who worked in
accounting demonstrated career certainty: “I really like the company. It’s
a great company. They really are good to their employees, and I can’t
imagine, I have no reason to leave the company. . . . I think this is like the
perfect field for me. . . . It’s a lot of opportunity, different areas, good salary
opportunities. It’s a great job.”
In contrast, more than half of the interviewees felt extremely uncertain
about their work paths. For example, one middle-class white woman who
had gone to college but had not yet graduated felt more sure about her two
tattoos than her career goals. She said, “At least those two times in my life,
I knew exactly what I wanted. I knew what tattoo I wanted. I knew where
I wanted [them]. Now I have no clue anymore. . . . A tattoo is a lifetime
commitment. That’s the one thing that I know I’m stuck with.” Reflecting

distribution.
uncertain economic conditions, interviewees expected their careers to

change over the course of their lives. As one working-class white single
mother put it, “My goals are always, always, always, always changing.
Every time I decide on something permanent, it changes.” Similarly, a
middle-class white interviewee said, “I just can’t make a commitment. . . . I
think I’ll just drift for awhile in jobs.” Concern about her ability to achieve
her goals prompted one middle-class white college graduate to avoid
planning altogether: “I don’t have definite plans. . . . But maybe that’s why
I don’t have plans. . . . I don’t have plans to get messed up.”
This orientation may reflect both the decline in lifelong occupations
and the expansion of women’s career opportunities resulting from the
women’s movement. For example, one working-class Korean American
woman who had a full-time job in publishing attributed her career uncer-
tainty to living in an era of “choices.” As she put it,
I realize that, with my generation, we aren’t doing one thing for the span of
our lives. . . . I still haven’t figured out where I want to end up. . . . I’ve con-
sidered pretty much the run of the gambit. I think I’m lucky to be in the
United States in this era when I do have so many choices. . . . And I wouldn’t
give that up for anything in the world, but that makes it harder to figure out
what it is you want when you can do anything in my talent range. I guess
I probably won’t be an astronaut or a nuclear physicist.
This quote suggests that young women are deeply influenced by the career
opportunities that were opened up by the women’s movement. In contrast
to the limited occupations available to women previously, these intervie-
wees are “living feminism” as they embrace their choices. As a middle-
class white woman put it: “Nowadays, you can go out and become anything
you want.” Another middle-class white woman emphasized the impor-
tance of women’s employment traditionally male fields when she said,
So many women are doing things . . . that a couple years ago they might
have thought was impossible. But now they’re like, “Oh, I can fly to the
moon, and . . . I can mix chemicals just as well as the next guy. Or I can run
a whole entire city just as well as the next guy can. Or I can run a whole
company and be a CEO just as well as the next guy.”
This perspective went hand in hand with an assumption of equality. As a

middle-class white woman put it, “I don’t feel inferior to men. I don’t feel
like this person’s going to do something better because he’s a man.”
Interviewees contrasted these opportunities with those of their mother’s
generation. For example, a middle-class white woman said, “For my
mom, her obstacles were pretty clear-cut, that she was a woman, period,

distribution.
was an obstacle.” As I reported in a previous article drawing on these

interviews, one middle-class Vietnamese American law student explained
that women used to think, “‘I will marry a doctor. I will marry a lawyer.’
It was never: ‘I will become one’” (Aronson 2003, 910). A number of
interviewees directly credited the women’s movement for these career
opportunities, yet many recognized persisting inequalities as well
(Aronson 2003).
In addition to the influence of the women’s movement, career uncer-
tainty may also reflect a delay in the transition to adulthood resulting from
economic conditions. Some interviewees reported feeling “young” and
not yet “grown up.” For example, one middle-class biracial (African
American and white) woman said that after college graduation “I’m . . .
trying to find my bearings.” She went on to discuss multiple travel and
career options and concluded, “It used to really bug me, but . . . I’m
only 24.” A working-class white college graduate mentioned that all
young people today seem to be “struggling to find a niche for themselves.”
This was a result of both internal questioning (as she put it, “What exactly
is it that I want to be doing?”) and external realities (“How do I get my
foot in the door?”).
Career uncertainty may also be gendered, as several of the women
directly linked it to a lack of confidence. The law student quoted above, who
had graduated from college after only three years, felt that her success
resulted from both luck and deceiving others into thinking that she was
capable. As a result, she was afraid of her “luck running out” and “being
found out.” She described her lack of confidence in gendered terms:
Men are more confident . . . in their outlook, in their ability to succeed. I
mean, just speaking from me and my friends, I think that my women friends
seem to be more cautious, like always have a plan B, because just in case,
there’s always that failure option, whereas the men I know are always, you
know, I want this, and they just go right at it to get it. . . . They seem more
confident in their path, whereas, I think women expect more obstacles, so
therefore they plan for it.
Although the women’s movement has opened up women’s career options

significantly, young women often express ambivalence about them. As I
have discussed elsewhere, the majority of the interviewees recognized
persistent obstacles that women face, such as male-dominated fields and
a lack of workplace support for employed mothers (Aronson 2003). In
sum, the widespread career uncertainty expressed by these interviewees
simultaneously reflects the influence of the women’s movement, current
economic conditions, and persistent gender inequalities.

distribution.
Getting Married
Although marriage has operated as a signifier of the transition to adult-
hood for women in many previous eras (Modell 1989), the women in this
study emphasized the importance of establishing their own identities,
regardless of relationship status. Half of the interviewees were involved in
committed relationships (10 of these women were married, nine of whom
were white and one of whom was Hispanic), while the remaining half
were single. Although none directly labeled themselves as lesbians, one
woman was questioning her sexuality, and another (who had been in
prison since she was a teenager) suggested that her relationships had been
with women. Although marriage is discussed in the life course literature
as a universal marker of adulthood, it is generally not accessible to les-
bians. My conclusions about the marker of marriage are thus based on my
heterosexual interviewees and do not address how lesbian or bisexual
women perceive marriage. As the heterosexual interviewees emphasized
the themes of self-development and independence in their relationships,
they reflected an appropriation of feminism into their lives.
The married interviewees expressed generally positive views about
their relationships. For example, an upper-middle-class white woman
described her decision to get married as follows: “We’ve been together for
a very long time. It was kind of like the next step. . . . I just knew he was the
one.” Although marriage was seen as a turning point in their lives, it was
not a turning point by itself but was instead connected to other adult tran-
sitions, such as establishing an independent residence, financial indepen-
dence, and parenthood (also see Hartmann and Swartz 2007). For
example, a middle-class white woman said that in “the past seven months,
I’ve just become an adult.” She elaborated,
Since I got married, it seems like all these adult things are happening to me.
I’m an aunt. I’ll be a godmother. I bought a house. It’s like I’m not at that
middle stage anymore between teenage and adult years. I feel much more
mature. And because of those turning points, they’ve made me mature. . . .
Now I actually feel like an adult in this world. Where before when I was
just 20 [or] 21, it was like I was stuck in between. Like I was almost in
limbo. . . . And I almost felt like I didn’t know where I belonged in this world.
Similarly, a white working-class mother listed marriage as one of three

turning points in her life: “[my child’s] birth, our marriage, and graduat-
ing school.” These examples suggest that marriage by itself is not the
primary life sphere influencing women’s sense of self.

distribution.
Further reflecting the “living feminism” theme, self-development and

self-sufficiency were central to interviewees’ views of romantic relation-
ships. For example, a white upper-middle-class newlywed expressed her
emotional independence in terms of “figuring out how you want your rela-
tionship to be, so that you can be together but still really have your inde-
pendence and still have your own time.” A working-class white mother
who delayed marriage until she felt “ready,” despite an unplanned pregnancy,
experienced conflict with her husband about going to college and pursu-
ing a career. He felt that “the man is supposed to support his family,” yet she
had obtained an associate’s degree in nursing and was determined to become
a registered nurse. She expressed the importance of self-development and
independence when she said, “My husband said: ‘I don’t think so! But . . . I
want to do it, and I know I will.” This perspective illustrates an absorption
of women’s movement ideology: Rather than following the limitations set
by her husband, this young woman fully expects her own career goals to
matter. A married working-class Hispanic woman linked women’s inde-
pendence today with changing norms about women’s lives. She said,
“Nowadays, because of what women have done, they’ve proved that we
can do just as much, if not more than a man. . . . Women have become
aware that they can be more independent. They don’t have to rely on men
or anyone. They can rely on themselves.”
Six interviewees had maintained long-term (more than one year), long-
distance relationships with their boyfriends or fiancées. Rather than
emphasizing the difficult aspects of the distance, these women universally
reported the positive side of separation. They used words such as freedom,
independence, and space to describe the self-development that such a rela-
tionship allows. For example, one engaged woman, who is working-class
and Korean American, had lived in a separate state from her fiancée for
nearly three years. She said that she was “glad that he did go” because it
allowed her to develop during her “critical growing years.” A long-distance
relationship allowed her to develop and strengthen friendships and to
“be living on my own and supporting myself and . . . knowing I can do it.”
A middle-class Vietnamese American woman in a long-distance relation-
ship echoed these points: “It’s actually a good arrangement. . . . We’re very
independent people.” These examples emphasize the importance of inde-
pendence and self-development to contemporary young women. Instead
of viewing their path to adulthood as dependent on men, these women
hope to develop their own adult identities through education, careers,
social connections, and financial independence.
Some single mothers hoped to marry eventually. For example, when
asked about her goals for the future, one working-class and white single

distribution.
mother mentioned several goals, including finding a long-term relation-

ship. As she summarized, “That’s basically my goal [laugh]. Find a good,
good man to love both of us [her and her son].” However, for most of the
single mothers, the more practical concern of self-sufficiency took prece-
dence over marriage. As a middle-class white single mother put it, “I’m
probably not done growing up, probably not ready to be in a relationship.”
In fact, most of the single mothers did not count on relationships with men
to become permanent but instead focused on their relationships with their
children. As one white working-class woman put it, “I just decided . . . it’s
going to be me and [my son].” Single parenthood was viewed as an
acceptable alternative to several women who were not yet parents. For
example, one middle-class white woman said, “Men are so impossible. I
definitely want marriage and kids. . . . I’ve planned one thing out. If I’m not
married by the time I’m 30, I’m going to start thinking about having a
child by myself.” Thus, the unmarried parents did not view marriage as
necessary for adult womanhood.
Although most of the women who were not involved in relationships
hoped to marry eventually, they were explicit about the optional nature of
marriage: They saw it as one choice among many and were not rushing
into marriage. For example, one middle-class biracial (African American
and white) woman said,
I’m independent. And I think to a certain extent men either don’t like that
or they get intimidated by that perhaps. And what scares me, the more time
goes by, the more I have these expectations of what I want in a man, what
I want in a relationship, and as soon as I see something that’s not what I
want, it’s like, “Psst, bye.”
Similarly, as a working-class and white interviewee described her expec-

tations for marriage, “When I’m, like, 30 years old, or late 20s or what-
ever, I might be able to deal with the marriage thing. . . . I don’t have a clue
as far as . . . specifics, like what age I would [say for marriage]. I think
progressively as I get older, I push back the age that I want to get married.”
A middle-class African American woman echoed these points: Instead of
being “tied down” and “committing your life to one person,” she wanted
to “be free to make your decisions.” Getting married was “the furthest
thing from my mind.”
There were several concerns that influenced young women’s lack of
plans for marriage, including divorce, financial instability, gender inequality
in parenting, and a history of difficult relationships, including domestic
violence. On the issue of divorce, one middle-class white woman who had

distribution.
dated her boyfriend since high school said that, as a result of witnessing
her parents’ divorce, she was “waiting to get married” until she was
“ready.” The “irresponsible” actions of her children’s father prompted a
working-class African American single mother to avoid relationships alto-
gether. As she put it, “I don’t blame men or anything like that, but I just
don’t trust them, point blank. And I live alone. . . . Men are not a priority.” A
middle-class white woman alluded to changing gender practices as a
result of the women’s movement yet was concerned about persisting gen-
der inequalities in parenting when she said that women, “no matter how
liberated [they] think [they] are, bear [their] children’s responsibility.”
In sum, self-development and self-reliance were present for these inter-
viewees regardless of marital or relationship status. “Living feminism” in
this sphere means that those young women who want to get married also
want to live their married lives on their own terms. Those who delay mar-
riage do so in favor of self-development or to avoid such problems as
divorce or gender inequality in parenting.
CONCLUSION
Three key subjective themes emerged as these young women discussed

the objective markers typically studied by life course research: indepen-
dence/self-reliance, self-development, and uncertainty. The first theme,
independence/self-reliance, emerged in young women’s perceptions of
financial independence, getting married, and becoming a parent. These
women expected to financially establish themselves on their own, apart
from parents or relying on a man through marriage. They also expressed a
desire to follow their own goals despite romantic relationships, and many
emphasized the optional nature of marriage. The single mothers empha-
sized that their decision processes about having a child were made inde-
pendently of the baby’s father. The second theme, self-development,
emerged among the disproportionately middle-class women who pursued
four-year colleges, as they emphasized exploration of their interests, tal-
ents, and identities during college. The heterosexual interviewees also
expressed self-development in terms of the lack of centrality of marriage in
their lives. The third theme, uncertainty, was present in young women’s
experiences with full-time work and in the middle-class experience of
completing postsecondary education.
Taken together, these findings illustrate that young women are partially
“living feminism” by incorporating feminist ideologies and attitudes in
their life course plans and expectations. Young women make sense of their
lives through perspectives absorbed from the women’s movement: They

distribution.
expect to have fulfilling jobs, support themselves economically, develop

their own identities, raise children alone if necessary, and pursue their own
goals even when they are in relationships with men. Feminism, in this con-
text, is lived through women’s everyday experiences. Feminism becomes an
active part of their worldviews as they incorporate aspects of its ideologies
into what it means to become an adult woman.
However, this appropriation of feminism is usually unconscious or
“semiconscious” (Stacey 1991). That is, although we sometimes see an
awareness of the role of the women’s movement, most young women do
not fully recognize the role of feminism in structuring how they experience
such life course choices as marriage and work. As such, feminism has also
become more diffuse and depoliticized. The diffusion of feminism has both
positive and negative implications. On the positive side, feminism’s inte-
gration into young women’s everyday lives indicates movement success.
Historical transformation in individual choices and identities has an aggre-
gate effect as women reject patriarchal arrangements. On the negative side,
there are limits to how far these women bring feminist attitudes into their
lives, which is why I have said that they incorporate feminism only par-
tially. For example, although many hoped for egalitarian romantic rela-
tionships to help them balance their future work and family, the hoped-for
support rarely materialized for the women who had already become moth-
ers (Aronson 1999). In addition, although supportive of feminist goals,
very few interviewees recognized the need for political critique or worked
for social change (Aronson 2003). Thus, these women are “borrowing fem-
inist principles” (Taylor 1996, 27) for their own purposes rather than
explicitly embracing politicized feminist ideologies and goals.
This matter is further complicated because feminism is obviously not
the only historical force influencing young people’s lives. In particular,
class inequalities and economic uncertainties have made their way to the
subjective level, as low-wage jobs and career instability have become
normative. In this context, young people may look to other kinds of
markers, such as independence from their own parents and having a
child, as evidence of “success” toward becoming an adult. In addition,
greater flexibility, fragility, and uncertainty in how people of all ages
define themselves in terms of full-time work and romantic relationships
might make these transitions less central to becoming an adult woman.
Yet we cannot understand young women’s experiences solely as a result
of economic forces. Growing up in the shadow of the women’s move-
ment has produced a particular range of life course possibilities for
young women. These options would not have been available to young
women had the second wave women’s movement not occurred.

distribution.
This article has turned up a number of complex themes that call out for
future research. Future research should examine the subjective transition
to adulthood with larger and more representative samples of young adults,
with special attention to gender, class, and racial differences. In particular,
we need to know more about subjective similarities and differences
between young women and men. Future research would also benefit from
intergenerational comparisons. These areas could help disentangle the
influence of economic and demographic change from the legacy of the
women’s movement on people’s lives. In addition, it would be useful to
examine the process by which feminist principles get absorbed in people’s
everyday lives. That is, under what circumstances do they select particu-
lar “strategies”? (Stacey 1991). Which “strategies” are not selected and
why? To what extent are people consciously “living feminism”? Are there
class and racial differences in the conscious appropriation of women’s
movement ideology? As researchers continue to examine these questions,
we should give further attention to the three subjective themes uncovered
here. Self-development, independence/self-reliance, and uncertainty may
be especially important to fully understand the unique experiences of
young women today.
NOTES
1. I would like to thank Karen Lutfey for this phrase.

2. Although the interviewees were slightly older than the so-called “twixters”
(the interviewees were born in 1973 or 1974), many of the same issues raised in
the Time article regarding the extension of adolescence apply to them as well.
3. Social class background was based on parents’ income and education as
reported in the parent surveys in the first year of the study (1988). Approximately
31 percent of the interview sample had working-class backgrounds (this included
those whose parents had less than a bachelor’s degree and earned less than $30,000
per year in 1988). The majority of the sample, nearly 48 percent, came from
middle-class backgrounds. This included four subgroups: parents who had high
educational attainment (at least a bachelor’s degree) and low income (less than
$30,000 per year in 1988), low educational attainment (less than a bachelor’s
degree) but high income (at least $50,000 per year in 1988), high education (at
least a bachelor’s degree) and middle income (between $30,000 and $50,000 per
year in 1988), and low education (less than a bachelor’s degree) and middle
income. In all, 21 percent were classified as upper-middle-class in background
because their parents had high educational attainment (at least a bachelor’s degree)
and earned a middle to high income (more than $50,000 per year in 1988).
4. Italic formatting is used to represent emphasis in interviewees’ speech.

distribution.
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Pamela Aronson is assistant professor of sociology at the University of

Michigan–Dearborn. Her research examines young women’s transition to
adulthood, perception of role models, work and family orientations, and atti-
tudes toward feminism. She also studies class differences in the experience
of postsecondary education and gender differences in career development.

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The Markers and Meanings of Growing Up: Contemporary Young

The online version of this article can be found at:

Sociologists for Women in Society

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Citations (this article cites 12 articles hosted on the

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Keywords: adolescence; transition to adulthood; young women; identity; life course;

A recent cover of Time magazine introduced us to the “twixters,” young

Although recent studies have also considered aspects of the subjective

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couples make traditional gender choices when they have children

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of roles rather than the achievement of a single marker. Although inter-

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Participants were part of the Youth Development Study (YDS), an

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TABLE 1: Transition Patterns of Youth Development Study (YDS) Women

In school 28.6 15 35.7

TABLE 2: Number of Interviewees by Race and Class Background

themes (see Aronson 1999), and I allowed interviewees space to bring up

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MARKERS SUBJECTIVELY ASSOCIATED

I am my own person. I don’t need the support of anybody else, at least

Those who were financially dependent felt discouraged about their

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Whether it be the expectation to have to be self-sufficient and to be econom-

Thus, this self-reliant and self-sufficient approach reflects an incorpo-

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Here, we see an awareness of the effect of changing gender norms on,

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Class differences reflected larger trends in postsecondary education

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During undergrad you’re . . . expected to explore different fields. . . . I was

This exploration is consciously linked with the expansion of women’s

Thus, expanded career and educational opportunities resulting from the

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Although economic conditions and changing educational requirements for

MARKERS SUBJECTIVELY DISTINCT

Beginning Full-Time Work

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uncertain economic conditions, interviewees expected their careers to

This perspective went hand in hand with an assumption of equality. As a

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was an obstacle.” As I reported in a previous article drawing on these

Although the women’s movement has opened up women’s career options

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Similarly, a white working-class mother listed marriage as one of three

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Further reflecting the “living feminism” theme, self-development and

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mother mentioned several goals, including finding a long-term relation-

Similarly, as a working-class and white interviewee described her expec-

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Three key subjective themes emerged as these young women discussed

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expect to have fulfilling jobs, support themselves economically, develop

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1. I would like to thank Karen Lutfey for this phrase.