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As noted by Settersten (Chap. 1), historical changes in the transition to adulthood have meant young people are now dependent on their families for material and emotional support for longer periods of time than perhaps ever before. The study by Fingerman, Cheng, Tighe, Birditt, and Zarit (Chap. 5) provides great detail on the ways in which parents are involved as their children transition to adulthood, as well as how they and their young adult children feel about it. Importantly, both Settersten and Fingerman and her colleagues point out that not all families are equally equipped to manage this increased responsibility. How families facilitate successful transitions to adulthood is a critical issue for contemporary family scholars. In this chapter, we first highlight what we see as some key contributions of Fingerman and her colleagues’ study. We then identify some areas needing further explication. Finally, we build on Fingerman and colleagues’ contributions by presenting additional empirical work that speaks to how families affect the transition to adulthood and young adults’ success.

The ways families invest in young adult children have received increased attention, but existing work tends to focus on the transfer of material resources with less attention to dynamics within families, such as relationship quality and emotional support. A key contribution of Fingerman and her colleagues’ work is that they do both. They provide an important portrait of parent–child relationships during early adulthood, including the quality of contact and the varieties of support young people receive from their parents. A major strength of their paper lies in recognizing and examining variation in parents’ and young adults’ assessments of their receipt of support rather than considering only the amount of support itself.

A second key strength is that to the extent allowed via available data, they have placed the findings from the Family Exchanges Study in an historical context. It is critically important that as we build our understanding of the contemporary transition to adulthood we carefully delineate changes in social structural and cultural contexts, that is, what is or is not changing, and likewise which behaviors and experiences are changing and which are not.

Fingerman and colleagues also demonstrate the importance of family context for families’ capacities for involvement and support, focusing specifically on parental economic resources – income and educational attainment. For example, parental income predicts the financial and practical assistance parents provide young adult offspring and explains why students receive more of both types of assistance from their parents. In our past work, we have conceptualized family context more broadly to include family structure, parental resources, and parent–child relationships (Benson & Johnson, 2009; Musick & Bumpass, 1999), and here we argue for a more inclusive treatment of family context. Given the increasing diversity of family forms and their wide-ranging impact on family relationships and young adult outcomes, family structure is critical to consider (Benson & Johnson, 2009; Brown, 2010; Cavanagh, 2008). Beyond family structure, families are an important source of socialization, enabling young people to develop confidence, autonomy, and aspirations (Brown, 2010; Swartz, 2008). Thus, multiple dimensions of parent–child relations, both prior to and during the young adult years, likely facilitate or detract from successful transitions to adulthood.

While we know that parent–child relationships are critical during childhood and adolescence, scholars have focused less attention on parent–offspring relationships in young adulthood. Fingerman and colleagues contend that warm, supportive parent–child relationships may scaffold successful development but warn that excessive involvement may undermine this development and create dependency rather than autonomy. For example, a recent study on the transition to college suggests that overly close relationships stifle autonomy and have negative consequences for attainment (Turley, Desmond, & Bruch, 2010). In their work, however, Fingerman and colleagues find only limited effects of parental relationships on offspring’s life satisfaction. The amount of parental support provided (frequent advice, emotional support, companionship, and money) is positively associated with life satisfaction, but only among students. Yet, the authors find that parents who viewed their young adult children as needing more than other children reported lower life satisfaction than parents whose children needed less help. These findings raise important questions about the long-term effects of the extended transition on children and parents, with attention to potential costs and benefits across generations. In particular, it is important to consider whether and to what extent parent–offspring relationships impact other types of transitions associated with adulthood, such as educational and employment success.

In addition, Fingerman and her colleagues highlight how parental support to children may depend on the pathways taken in the transition to adulthood. Importantly, family support may operate on later attainment through role transitions and attainments early in the adult transition, and the effects of support may be conditioned by them as well. In addition to the student and partnership roles considered by Fingerman and colleagues, it is important to understand how family support is related to and conditioned by other major role transitions during this period. Employment, parenthood, and coresidence status may also play key parts in this process, and all are intertwined in important ways.

In this chapter, we examine the implications of adolescent and early adult family context on young adult subjective attainment. In doing so, we extend and complement Fingerman and her colleagues’ work in several ways. First, we broaden the consideration of family context to include family structure, resources, and processes. Second, we examine parent–child ties both in adolescence and early adulthood. On one important dimension of parent–child relationships, parent–child closeness, we are able to examine its relation to subjective perceptions of attainment both as tapped in adolescence and in the earliest ages of the transition to adulthood, speaking to the issue Fingerman and her colleagues raise about the longevity of the parent–child tie. Like them, we address the ways in which support from and closeness to parents early in the transition to adulthood contribute to perceived success, although we consider how it may occur independently and by mediating the effects of adolescent family context. Third, we include employment, parenthood, and independent living in our consideration of pathway markers and how they work together with ties to parents. Finally, we expand our knowledge base by examining additional indicators of successful transitions – young people’s subjective sense of their own success in terms of status attainment and career status – and at a somewhat later age in the transition to adulthood – age 24–32. We focus on these subjective evaluations of success because economic attainment is so central to perceptions of adulthood today (Arnett, 2004; Furstenberg, Kennedy, McLoyd, Rumbaut, & Settersten, 2004) and extend consideration to somewhat older ages to see how ties with parents early in the transition matter later.

We address these questions by using panel data, which allows us to more fully assess the relationship between family context and subsequent success. The cross-sectional design of Fingerman and colleagues’ study presents potential endogeneity or reverse causality issues and limits their ability to examine how these earlier family experiences shape subsequent development. Since family relationships and subjective success were measured at similar time points, it is difficult to know whether relationships drive success or level of success drives relationships. It also means that they are more limited in their ability to understand the processes that underlie the association of support from parents with successful outcomes. We more fully address these questions here.

Data and Methods

This research is based on survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative study of U.S. adolescents in grades 7–12 from 134 middle and high schools in 80 communities (Bearman, Jones, & Udry, 1997). The Wave I (in-home) survey interviews began during the 1995–1996 school year (Wave I), and participants were reinterviewed between April and August 1996 (Wave II), between August 2001 and April 2002 (Wave III), and between 2007 and 2008 (Wave IV). The total Wave I in-home sample size, including special over-samples, is 20,745. We use data collected in Waves I, III, and IV and restrict analysis to respondents who were interviewed in all three Waves, were assigned a sampling weight, and have complete data on all variables in the analysis (n  =  11,056). We weight all analyses and use survey analysis techniques to adjust for the complex sample design (see Chantala & Tabor, 1999).

Dependent Variables

We examine two subjective assessments of achievement, including perceived attainment and whether the respondent is working at a job related to his or her career. Both dependent variables are measured in Wave IV when young adults in the sample ranged in age from 24 to 32. Subjective attainment is measured using a question that asks respondents to rank themselves in comparison to other Americans in terms of having money, education, and a respected job, with “1” indicating low levels of these traits and “10” the highest level. Working a career job is measured with a dichotomous variable that distinguishes those young people working in jobs they say are related to their long-term career goals from those who say it is not related or preparatory for that career, or that they do not hold long-term career goals. While career jobs can vary in quality, this outcome complements consideration of attainment by tapping into what is considered a key part of becoming an adult – settling into a career (Mortimer, Vuolo, Staff, Wakefield, & Xie, 2008).

Independent Variables

We examine adolescent family structure, parental resources including family income and parental education level, and parent–child relationships when respondents were 12- to 17-years old (Wave I). Family structure labels given in quotations indicate the status of the vast majority of families in categories that are in reality slightly more diverse than the label implies. These and all other variables in the analysis are described in Table 6.1. Early adult family relationships are captured in two ways: through a similar measure of parent–adolescent closeness as in Wave I (but derived from fewer items) and parent financial support. These measures, along with early adult achievements and role transitions, are taken from the Wave III survey when respondents were 18–26 years old. In our final models, we also consider personal income and educational attainment at Wave IV, when subjective attainment is also measured.

Table 6.1 Description and summary statistics (weighted) of study measures (n  =  11,056)
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In our analysis, we first consider the baseline differences in the outcomes by adolescent family structure, and then consider how family resources and processes in adolescence contribute to the outcomes and mediate the effects of family structure. Next, we examine closeness to parents and parental financial support in early adulthood (age 18–26). Finally, we consider the adult roles young people have entered, along with objective measures of attainment to ascertain how they mediate the effects of the family measures and whether various aspects of the familial context contribute independently to young people’s perceptions of their own achievement. Here, we also consider whether the effects of parental financial support and close relationships early in the transition to adulthood are conditional on the roles offspring have entered.

Results

Model 1 in Table 6.2 shows baseline differences in subjective attainment at Wave IV for those who lived in varying family structures, controlling only age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Compared to other young people who as adolescents lived with their two biological parents, those who lived in any other family structure as adolescents rate themselves later as less successful. The effect of living with two “adoptive” parents is not statistically significant, but is of a similar magnitude as each other family structure. Higher ratings of success come with age, and both Blacks and those of “other” race/ethnicities perceive themselves to be less successful than do non-Hispanic Whites.

Table 6.2 Ordinary least squares regression models of subjective attainment (n  =  11,056)
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Model 2 introduces adolescent family resources (family income and parental education) and the adolescent measures of family process. Not surprisingly, family income and parental education are associated with greater subjective success. Closer parent–child relationships and higher parental educational expectations are also associated with greater subjective success and high parental monitoring is linked to lower success. These findings speak to the debate Fingerman and her colleagues described about the potential costs and benefits of parent–child closeness. Closeness is associated with later perceived success, but high levels of parental monitoring is negatively associated with later assessments of success, perhaps because it hinders the development of autonomy and skills young people need to navigate the transition to adulthood. Differences across family structures are attenuated somewhat in this model, due specifically to the introduction of family resources to the model (additional analyses not shown).

In Model 3 we consider, to the extent measures are available, the influence of the ongoing parent–child relationship as offspring enter early adulthood. Closer relationships to parents at age 18–26, and the extent of parental financial help at age 18–26, both promote perceptions of success later. When we added measures of parental financial help and closeness in early adulthood separately, the effects of family income and parent–adolescent closeness on attainment, respectively, were considerably weakened (additional analyses not shown). This suggests that family income affects perceptions of attainment partially through the effect of financial support in early adulthood. Likewise, continuity in parent–offspring closeness partially explains why parent–adolescent closeness matters.

We next consider achievement measures and entry into adult roles at age 18–26. High school grades and educational attainment predict higher self-perceived attainment later, as does current enrollment in a 4-year college or graduate program, full-time employment, and having moved away from families of origin. Having cohabited by these age groups is associated with lower perceived attainment. Importantly, these pathway markers eliminate the remaining significant effects of family structure, and weaken further the effects of adolescent family resources and relationships on perceived attainment. The effect of parent financial assistance is also explained by the achievements and role changes of early adulthood. In analyses not shown, we examined the potential for conditional effects of parent–offspring relationships by the role transitions made by young adult offspring. There were few significant effects. Consistent with Fingerman and colleagues’ results, we did find that parental financial support only affected the perceived attainment of those who were college students. We also found that the effect of close relationships to parents during this stage was weaker for young people who reported having cohabited with a romantic partner. In Model 5 we show that while contemporaneous objective measures of educational attainment and income do influence perceived attainment, the picture of how family processes in adolescence and early adulthood shape perceived attainment remains much the same.

Our second measure of achievement is the respondents’ evaluations of whether they are working in jobs related to their long-term career goals. We follow the same analytic strategy. In Model 1 in Table 6.3 we again see baseline differences by family structure. In this case, however, young adults from two-parent “adoptive” families are doing as well as those from two-biological parent families (see Benson & Johnson, 2009, for an additional example of this pattern in the transition to adulthood). Working in a career job is linked to advancing age, as one might expect, but is lower among females than males, and lower among Blacks, Hispanics, and those from other race/ethnicities compared to non-Hispanic Whites and Asians. Parents’ education and ­family income are again associated with achievement (see Model 2), and attenuate some of the family structure effects. Model 2 also includes the indicators of adolescent family process. Of the family processes in adolescence we examine, only parent–child closeness is associated with working a career job at age 24–32 (Table 6.3).

Table 6.3 Logistic regression models of career status (n  =  10,947)
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We next introduce the measures of parent–child relationships at Wave III. Both closer relationships and parental financial assistance earlier in the transition to adulthood facilitate working in career jobs later. These measures also further attenuate the effects of adolescent family structure. They also reduce the effect of adolescent parent–child closeness considerably, though it remains statistically significant. Importantly, family income is no longer statistically significant when parental financial assistance is added separately to the model (analyses not shown), indicating that income operates by affecting the level of financial support in the earliest part of the transition to adulthood.

In Model 4 we include educational achievements and adult role transitions at age 18–26. These pathway markers account for much of the remaining effects from adolescence and attenuate somewhat the effects of relationships with and financial assistance from parents at this age. Educational achievement, enrollment in a 4-year college or graduate program, full-time employment, and marriage among the 18- to 26-year olds predicted working in a career job at age 24–32. In analyses not shown, we examined whether the effects of relationships with and financial assistance from parents were conditional on the adult role statuses their young adult offspring had entered early in the transition to adulthood. We found two statistically significant interactions. The positive effect of Wave III closeness to parents was weaker among those who had married and among those who had had children. Finally, we again introduced indicators of objective attainment from Wave IV. They strongly predicted working career jobs. Importantly, however, parent–child closeness and parental financial assistance at Wave III had effects independent of these objective achievements.

Discussion and Conclusion

Family context affects the transition to adulthood in important ways, both operating during the transition and having shaped relationship histories. Like Fingerman and her colleagues, our study speaks directly to the costs and benefits of parent–child relationships, but our work examined the impact of these relationships as embedded in family context and over time. With respect to parent–child relationships, we found that closeness, both in adolescence and in early adulthood, facilitated perceived success later in the transition to adulthood. Relationships in adolescence matter in part because they are maintained to some extent over the years, but they continue to contribute to successful outcomes beyond this continuity (see Model 3). High levels of parental monitoring in adolescence, however, are another matter. It is here we see the potential risk of excessive parental involvement. Perhaps overly involved parents do not provide the context for young people to make decisions on their own and thus develop the necessary confidence and autonomy to successfully navigate the transition to adulthood. It is also possible, however, that parents ­monitor at high levels when adolescents are already experiencing problems and appear to be at risk of having trouble successfully navigating the move into adulthood. An important contribution of the Fingerman et al. paper, and one we cannot address ourselves, is that these relationships have implications for parents, too.

Both Fingerman and her colleagues’ study and ours also demonstrated important variation in families’ capacities to facilitate young adults’ successful transitions to adulthood. We extended their consideration of family context as material resources to include family structure as well. The panel design of the Add Health study also allowed us to identify the pathways through which adolescent family structure and processes operate on later achievement. First, growing up with two biological parents (and for one outcome we study, two “adoptive” parents) was advantageous for attainment because it was linked to parental resources as well as educational achievements and role transitions in early adulthood. Second, parental resources during adolescence, particularly family income, anticipated the relationships parents have with their offspring in early adulthood and the financial support they provide. Swartz, Kim, Uno, Mortimer, and O’Brien (2011) also found that parents’ socioeconomic status predicts economic and housing support provided to offspring in the transition to adulthood, and Schoeni and Ross (2005) show that high socioeconomic status parents provide far financial greater resources to young adults than low socioeconomic status parents. Importantly, the findings presented here also showed that adolescents who grow up in more economically advantaged households tend to perceive themselves as more successful than their less advantaged peers in part because their parents continue to provide additional financial support during the young adult transition. Third, offspring’s educational achievements and role transitions in early adulthood further mediate the effects of parental resources, highlighting how economic advantages during adolescence translate into different social pathways in young adulthood.

Parent–offspring ties in early adulthood also matter, in part, because they are tied to early achievements and role transitions. Indeed, we found that financial help in early adulthood is not significantly associated with perceived attainment when these pathway markers are introduced into the model, suggesting either that parental financial help increases perceived success in young adulthood by placing young adults of different pathways in early adulthood or that continued parental support depends on the paths their children take.

The pathways young people take in the transition to adulthood affect their perceived achievement, mediate some of the effects of family context as mentioned above, and in some cases condition the effects of parent–offspring ties in early adulthood. We found that enrollment in college or graduate school and working full-time at age 18–26 foster perceived success 5 years later. Young people’s own union formation has mixed effects. Having cohabited by this age is associated with lower perceived attainment later, but having married is associated with working a career job. While young adults today continue to value marriage, they are less likely to marry until they and/or their partners are financially stable or have achieved what family scholars refer to as the “high bar” for marriage (Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Gibson-Davis, Edin, & McLanahan, 2005). As a result, young adults who are not yet financially secure may choose cohabitation over marriage. Thus, the negative relationship between cohabitation and subjective achievement may reflect cohabitors’ relatively precarious economic position. In contrast, those who have chosen to marry may be in more stable employment situations. Other research suggests that the marriage role carries a more serious commitment to providing for one’s family and may serve as an incentive to obtain financial stability and consider one’s work as a career (Mortimer, Vuolo, Staff, Wakefield, & Xie, 2008). In addition, parents may be less likely to provide economic and housing support to their young adult children who have formed their own families (Swartz et al., 2011).

Fingerman and her colleagues raised the important issue of how parent–child ties may matter differently depending on the pathways taken in early adulthood. We too found that parental support, in this case financial support, only affected perceived attainment for those who were enrolled in college at the time. For college students, both parents and the students themselves may perceive financial support as instrumental, an investment in the young adult’s future. The other conditional effects in our analyses indicated that close parent–child relationships in early adulthood matter less for those who had cohabited (perceived attainment), or married, or had children (career status). Young adults with partners may have less need for a close relationship with parents, so that variability makes less difference. In addition, parents tend to favor giving offspring support when they are still single and attending school (Goldscheider, Thornton, & Yang, 2001).

Together, Fingerman and her colleagues’ study and ours demonstrated that families provide an important source of economic and social support in the transition to adulthood. Future research is needed on how families promote and impede successful development during the early adult years. In particular, we need to understand how processes within families lead to the production and reproduction of inequality. Research by Lareau and Weininger (2008) suggests that parents and families provide differential levels of social and cultural capital from childhood to adulthood, which has implications for how well young people navigate the transition to adulthood. Thus, more attention is needed on the ways in which socialization within families is linked both to social class position and to later success. In addition, we need to understand how family processes and resources operate across race/ethnicity groups and immigrant status as well. In addition, greater attention should be focused on the families supporting young adults – parents, but also other family members (Chap. 1). Fingerman and colleagues showed that while investment can be important for success in young adulthood, it does not come without consequences for the parents who are providing this extra financial and emotional support.