When Will Americans in Their Twenties Grow Up?
09/16/2013
The Pew Research Center says Americans in their 20s are likely to become the most educated generation in history. They also have one of the worst employment rates in decades.
Welcome to This Is America from VOA Learning English. I’m Kelly Jean Kelly.
And I’m Jim Tedder. This week on our program, we look at changes in the lives of Americans in their 20s.
Young people legally become adults at the age of 18. They can vote and sign contracts. But adulthood is more than a legal definition. Many Americans do not really consider young people “adults” until they move out of their parents’ home and start a career.
These days, people in their 20s are often criticized for delaying adulthood. Yet some researchers say this criticism may be misplaced.
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is a research professor of psychology at Clark University in Massachusetts. He studies people in their 20s — or “20-somethings.” Mr. Arnett says 20-somethings today are different than their parents and grandparents were at that age.
“Now that people stay in education longer, they get married later, they have their first child later, the 20s are a period of really trying out different possibilities and moving from one thing to another.”
As a result, he says, the 20s are no longer about settling down. Instead they are increasingly about exploring.
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