Fewer young adults are achieving economic and family milestones typically associated with adulthood, according to a recent working paper from the U.S. Census Bureau.
According to the working paper, “Changes in Milestones of Adulthood,” almost half of all young adults in 1975 had reached four milestones associated with adulthood: moving out of one’s parents’ home, getting a job, getting married and having a child.
Five decades on, that progression has changed dramatically. The share of young adults that have followed the traditional pathway to adulthood has dropped to less than a quarter, according to the paper.
- Having a child
Oh fuck off, I have very consciously decided NOT to have a child. In my own lifetime, I will see the agrinomic sector completely fail due to runaway climate change. I will see actual resource wars. Why the fuck would I have a kid
I’ve consciously decided to let my siblings have all the kids for me. It’s going great! Lol
It’s called kin selection, basically you help your related’s offspring and to pass on similar related genes, assuming you are also helping them
Why the fuck would I have a kid
To help pay for your retirement.
I know that was a rhetorical question, but regardless, here’s the answer. Eventually people get old, and it’s generally good if there are enough younger folks to pick up the slack when older folks really can’t anymore.
Our society is essentially a house of cards. If there suddenly aren’t enough supports remaining at the base, those higher levels might start to collapse, and that tends to take the rest of the structure down too.
retirement
That is the most selfish and hateful reason to have a child. Your children are their own person, not your retirement insurance. If this is the typical breeder line of thought, no wonder there are so many abandoned elderly folk.
It’s also outright counterproductive if we see large increases in unemployment due to automation (including, but not limited to AI).
Ok, so first off, I was really talking about social security here, (though it really doesn’t matter either way). You can call it hateful or selfish, but it’s really just a mathematical issue, morality doesn’t factor in. The fact is for Social Security to work at a national level, you need people paying into it for people to be drawing out of it, that’s the whole system, that’s all it is.
You may have heard that people are growing increasingly worried about social security, as birth rates are down and there’s a growing fear that we could end up without enough people paying into it for the system to remain viable. So what’s the solution to the problem? How do you balance that equation? You have more babies, that’s the entire solution; it’s not rocket science, it’s arithmetic.
But hey, besides social security, there’s the personal angle too. This is probably what you were thinking about. Some people might expect their kids to help support them in their old age. Is this line of thought immoral and selfish? [Spoiler] Of course it fucking isn’t! Caring for each other is just what a loving family does. You do realize that the whole “help support me in my old age” request is a request, right? Your children are much more likely to do that if they feel that they’ve been loved and cared for and supported over the course of their lives. Just to say this again, this plan relies on caring for someone for an entire lifetime, not a small commitment, that’s a necessary condition for your kids to care for you in your old age. Meaning, nobody is trapping children into being their retirement plan, this isn’t like “one simple trick to guarantee an early retirement”. Honestly though, having children is an excellent way to acquire reliable insurance, as the best insurance a person can have is having other people who love you who can help you, after all, that’s the only reason any of us survived childhood in the first place.
TLDR: If you want retirement insurance, have a kid. It’s the loving thing to do and it can support others as well as yourself.
Yeah, so. Here’s the thing. I lived through a social security collapse in a country (not the US, obvs) with a youth boom. Trust me, having lots of bodies around did not help when the oligarchs horded all the wealth to escape hyperinflation and there was no work to go around.
It is of no use to have over half of the population in productive ages (19 - 45) if more than half of them are unemployed. And guess what, it didn’t help the elder either as they were the first casualties of a collapsed healthcare system. We had an abandoned elders crisis, along with several other crises, admittedly.
But I guess my point is, not even at a macroeconomic scale is having children any form of insurance. I know myself, as the cousin who have had to provide end of life care for more than one elder relative. Whom, I should point out, had way more children than my mom and dad, yet I was the only one with enough compassion left to care for distant relatives when their own children wouldn’t even shell out spare change to pay for food.
having lots of bodies around did not help when the oligarchs horded all the wealth to escape hyperinflation and there was no work to go around.
Ok, but corruption is a different issue. I don’t disagree that corruption and hyperinflation can make a social security system collapse. But simply not having enough money will also do that. So, either of these conditions would be enough to break the system, which means you do need both of these things under control to make it work. And it seems that we agree that letting that system collapse is a bad thing. With that in mind, I maintain that having kids is still a necessary condition to make the system work.
Of course, the orphan crushing machine needs more children to keep working.
Removed by mod
Oh you know, proliferation of the species etc.
I’m sure you’ll be annoyed at this answer but I mean ask stupid questions, get stupid answers. You are well within your rights to believe it but not to push it as fact.
Fuck off
Can’t handle the truth huh? Who would’ve guessed it.
Why are we calling these “milestones?” These are economic choices that were once expectations. Expectations that are no longer realistic, and can no longer be expected. These are NOT indicators of someone’s “success” at life.
Annoying that everything is written in clikcbait style these days. Why does it say “these 5” and then only list 4? was college the fifth, the one that’s still happening? (thank god)
If you have to ask what the 5th one is, you cant afford it.
I’m assuming that it’s “buying a home.” It’s sort of redundant with “moving out of your parents’ home”, though you could accomplish the latter without the former.
No children here with how fucked up things are. Only downside is no clue who will take care of us when we get too old. Maybe Winchester or Smith and Wesson…
I don’t need anyone to take care of me when I’m older. I decided that my retirement plan will be extreme sports. Base jumping? Wing suit? Steel toeing cops in the nuts? So many thrilling choices! Whatever happens, happens.
Gotta be thorough about it. Full body paralysis would be a suboptimal outcome.
Ideally I would have a wing suit and I would do a loop de loop into the side of a mountain. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had the time to reflect on good memories in my life and I want to go out living purely in the moment.
But as with all plans I’ve ever made it life, it most likely will not happen. I’ll go out in a completely unexpected and unplanned way. Probably in a ridiculous way too. Sadly it won’t be a story I’ll be able to share that time but that’s just how it goes.
Yeah, I’ll just chase the dragon off into the sunset when it’s my time
I just hope MAID is a thing society is okay with then
As I say, somebody’s getting a blowjob on my 60th, and it’s not gonna be me.
What about let people live however they want? I live in a village near bigger city in Poland, and a lot of people just stay home with their parents, because they have big houses, and there’s no need to pay for a flat as well.
Some people also don’t want to marry and/or have kids, and that’s fine as well.
parents’ home, getting a job, getting married and having a child.
Grouping those stats is pretty much clickbait as they’re completely different. This is the data from the paper:
In 2005, living away from parents was the most commonly experienced milestone, with about 84% of 25-34 year olds living independently. By 2023, this percentage declined to 81%. Labor force participation became the most common marker of adulthood, with about 86% of young adults reporting being in the labor force in 2023. The share of young adults who completed their education by attaining a high school or college degree increased by 9 percentage points between 2005 to 2023, from 74% to 83%. Family formation milestones, on the other hand, were experienced less often. In 2005, about 62% of young adults had ever married, a share that declined by 18 percentage points to 44% by 2023. Similarly, the proportion of young adults who lived with a child in the household decreased by 16 percentage points from 55% to 39% over this 18-year period.
Which shows that: yeah, most young adults have a job and most young adults move out of their parents’ home. It’s really only the family formation milestones that are down. (Who can blame us though, in this economy)
Multi-generational homes are in vogue again! There, positive spin.
Honestly, it might be the only way to build wealth over the next 20 years.
Well, guess I’m never gonna be an adult seeing as I had a vasectomy nearly a decade ago now. I did finally buy a house in my early 40s (well, I’m paying for it for the next 19 more years, but still).
Eh, mortgage on a home is good, especially if it’s at a nice rate. Although, I realize that whole idea is purely American.
Hm, so staying in all day and wanking isn’t on the list?
Getting married and having a child is not a milestone of adulthood. Being in a healthy relationship is though. You don’t need to be married and have a child to be in a long term healthy relationship.
Kids and a wedding ring are quantitative things they can measure externally. I bet, back when this list was first pulled out of someone’s ass, that was all they thought about whether a relationship was happy or not.
We know better, now.
My dad had those 4 things, too, and then one day his wife left him. If we measure ‘success’ against this criteria, he’s failed. I can see how this mindset makes one reluctant to leave a marriage or not have kids, and I can see the pressure of competing with the “Joneses” can be a stressor.
I’m glad we know better. A divorce is not failure: it’s harm reduction. No kids is not a failure: it’s a decision about finances and goals.
I get that some people - false consensus or not - think that everyone generally wants kids etc, but grading people on how they measure up to the Cunninghams is simply unfair.
And we could do with a lower birthrate anyway, once we find how to do so without ruining our economy.
I wonder why? Is it the rise of fascism?
Yeah, well most young adults wouldn’t make the mistake of cancelling the Late Show with Colbert Colbert.
Instead of having kids I have decided to go on good vacations every year.
AND I don’t have a bunch of grey hair. It’s great!
They dont mention the 5th milestone but I imagine its buying a home.
It’s finishing Elden Ring actually.
Completing education is the 5th. From the census study linked in the article
…reaching five milestones of adulthood: living away from their parents, completing their education, labor force participation, marrying, and living with a child.
They also mention it later in the article:
The completion of education, another marker of adulthood, has overshadowed other milestones over the years as an increasing number of young adults enroll in college, according to the paper.
ah good catch.
I imagine it’s buying a home, buying a car, having kids, getting a job (99% of people are actually getting this one, but it’s among the milestones I consider)#
5th milestone is purchasing nbc, Viacom etc. and shutting down programs trump hates… duh.
Man, all these people in the thread commenting that having kids isn’t a milestone of being an adult. It’s like they can’t fathom that it’s a general milestone, just because they’ve noped out of it.
Like if you said one of the goals of a career is retirement, and then some trust fund fucktard showed up and said “No! Because I work but I could’ve retired decades ago!”. Like stfu, it’s still a general goal for most people – just because you’re too stupid to put it together that they’re not talking about your specific niche situation, doesn’t change the general validity of the message.
Personally I don’t feel that goals and milestones are the same thing.
Agreed. Goal = something that I want to accomplish. Milestone = something that others (e.g. “society”) measure as an accomplishment.
Becoming a parent may be a milestone, but it most definitely isn’t one of my goals.
