The Journey Into Adulthood in Uncertain Times

This presentation provides an overview of a new book, "The Journey into Adulthood in Uncertain Times," published in 2025 by Robert Crosnoe, co-authored with Shannon Cavanagh. The book tackles some key questions of interest to population scientists, developmental scientists, and the public, including: Is the lengthening span of time that young people in the U.S. take to transition into adult roles creating a new generation of "adultolescents"? How has the decades-long reshaping of this critical period of life been complicated by specific historical crises? Focusing on the United States, the answers to these questions come from integrated analyses of multiple sources of population and qualitative data. The resulting story is about gradual versus revolutionary change in the ways that young people become adults in Western affluent countries, one that grounds the growing social panic about young adults today in a more complicated but less alarming reality. Robert Crosnoe is the Rapoport Centennial Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he serves as Co-Director of the Population Research Center and is affiliated with the Department of Psychology. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford University and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Dr. Crosnoe's research examines the education, health, and social development of children, adolescents, and young adults, with particular attention to socioeconomic circumstances and migration histories. His work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, and several major foundations, and has appeared in leading journals including American Sociological Review, Child Development, Demography, Pediatrics, and Nature. He is the author or co-author of numerous books on education, families, child development, and the transition to adulthood. Dr. Crosnoe has held leadership roles with several major professional organizations, including serving as President of the Society for Research on Adolescence, and has received numerous career, research, and teaching awards.