Left out in the rain

Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It's Good for Everyone. By Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray. Bantam; 272 pages; $15. Buy from Amazon.com

Correction to this article

PLUGGED in, narcissistic and upbeat, America's twenty-somethings may be the most educated, diverse and digitally savvy generation in the country's history. They are also most likely to be living with their parents. Though they burst into the workforce with expectations of fun and fulfilment (leading employers to grouse about their sense of entitlement), they have been delivered a slap by the recession. Nearly 16% of 18-24-year-olds are unemployed, almost double the national average. Most are simply struggling to keep their heads above water, according to the MacArthur Research Network.

The young in previous generations have also tended to drift, yet “opportunity structures today are less forgiving of trifling mistakes.” That is one of the conclusions of “Not Quite Adults”. Drawing on eight years of data and more than 500 interviews with young people between 18 and 34, Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray dismantle the common belief that this generation has been coddled into laziness. Rather, these young adults have come of age at a particularly merciless moment. Even before the recession, which will wreak lasting havoc on their earning power and trust in government, the market had ceased rewarding diligent, low-skilled labour with reasonable pay and benefits. Employment is now largely divided into well-paid, highly-skilled jobs and the poorly paid, less-secure jobs of the service sector. The middle has been hollowed out, on-the-job training is rare and good posts hard to come by.

A university degree has never been more essential for securing good employment. Graduates earn 54% more on average than those who never graduated, yet only a quarter of Americans between 25 and 34 have a bachelor's degree. Nearly half of the 3m people who enroll in university in America drop out within six years (among wealthy countries, only Italy has a worse rate). Part of the trouble, Mr Settersten and Ms Ray point out, is that in the absence of reliable public schools, parents must play a big role in the academic careers of their children. Good quality, low-cost options for higher education abound (despite the rising price of private tuition), yet the children of poorly educated adults are less likely to make the necessary investment in education. The debt that young people carry today is often not from college, the MacArthur research finds, but from the cost of not investing in college.

Mr Settersten, a sociology professor at Oregon State University, and Ms Ray, a writer attached to the MacArthur Research Network, use statistics and anecdotes to map out a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots—the generation's “swimmers” and “treaders”. The former often have supportive parents, wider social networks, university degrees and a greater sense of civic engagement. Many “swimmers” even choose to move back home to help pay off student loans and save for the future.

Most twenty-somethings, however, are “treaders”, who simply replicate the lessons of their poorer, less stable, non-voting and hands-off parents, but to worse effect. The authors argue that when young adults invest in themselves and their careers before taking on the baggage of marriage, children and a job to pay the bills, they are equipped to make better choices down the road, for themselves and as citizens. Having a child too early can be one of the costliest barriers to advancement, whereas postponing nuptials until careers are in place leads to lower divorce rates.

“Not Quite Adults” offers a valuable portrait of the diverging destinies of young people today. In a country that prizes self- reliance and private solutions for social problems, more young adults are doomed to sink. Regardless of where one assigns blame, when nearly two-thirds of the next generation is struggling to find “a secure foothold in the middle class”, everyone ends up paying the price.

Correction: A previous version of this article wrongly stated that about 37% of 18-to-29-year-olds are unemployed. This was corrected on January 7th 2010.