Exploring Family-Oriented Markers of Adulthood: Political and Personal Variations Among Emerging Adults

Previous studies have demonstrated a propensity for many emerging adults to minimize traditional indicators of adulthood, such as marriage and parenting. Beliefs about marriage and family are often ideological, especially within a contemporary, pluralistic society in which marriage and family have undergone significant transformations. The purpose of the current study was to investigate variation in how family-oriented roles and abilities were perceived as criteria for adulthood in a sample of emerging adult college students from several college campuses (N = 651). An emphasis of the investigation was on possible associations with political ideology and factors related to identity and day-to-day intentions. A cluster analysis approach was used to identify four groups of individuals based on the importance they assigned to the markers. Multivariate analysis of covariance results revealed multiple differences among the cluster groups as they related to other markers of adulthood, political tendencies, and v...