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.
As far as having children goes, I think it’s more than an economic effect. We also just have a change in personal goals, supported by a change in social expectation.
Choosing to start families at a later stage or just plain choosing not to at all, is sometimes a personal choice independently of economic pressures.
It should be noted that the article title is actually “Fewer young people are meeting these 5 milestones typically associated with adulthood”, and even it’s first sentence acknowledge these milestones as a mix of economic and family milestones - “Fewer young adults are achieving economic and family milestones typically associated with adulthood…”
Last I looked, we weren’t running out of humans, so the drop-off in breeding is mostly a capitalist concern, or a bigoted concern that the wrong humans are breeding.