Perceptions of the transition to adulthood among Chinese and American emerging adults

Abstract

This study explored cultural differences in the criteria young people have for becoming an adult. Specifically, the study sought (a) to compare Chinese and American responses concerning whether they believe they have reached adulthood; (b) to examine whether adulthood criteria could fit a common statistical model for both cultures; and (c) after estimating this model, to compare the importance of adulthood criteria for Chinese and Americans. Results indicated that Chinese students considered themselves to be adults more than did American students. Also, Chinese students ascribed greater importance to criteria that reflect obligations toward others than did the Americans. The influence of culture in the transition to adulthood was discussed.

Zaposlitveni status in zaznavanje obdobja odraslosti: primerjava med italijanskimi in nizozemskimi mladimi odraslimi

“…Similarly, the items on the Role Transitions subscale were drawn from the sociological literature, which has long used a series of specific role transitions as the defining criteria for the transition to adulthood (Goldscheider & Goldscheider, 1999;Hogan & Astone, 1986). The analysis of internal consistency pointed out that alpha levels of these subscales were considerably better in our sample than in previous studies, where internal consistency has always been moderate or low (e.g., Arnett, 2003;Sirsch et al, 2009) (Badger et al, 2006;Mayseless & Scharf, 2003). Therefore, Arnett's conceptual model shows high face validity, whereas statistical evidence for this model might lack (e.g., Barker & Galambos, 2005).…”

“…In this sense, results from the groups of individuals from Italy reflect how much the goal of forming a family in the future is crucial for their adult lives. Different cultural perceptions of what are the important criteria for reaching adulthood have been previously explained by individualistic vs. collectivistic societies' values (e.g., Badger, Nelson, & Barry, 2006;Piumatti, Pipitone, Di Vita, Latina, & Rabaglietti, 2013). Although the shared markers emphasize individualism, at the same time, they include collectivistic views.…”

“…These measures have been commonly used in other adolescent and young adult populations (e.g., Cheah & Nelson, 2004). The way in which the criteria were grouped into categories in the current study is based upon such previous research (Badger, Nelson & Barry, 2006). The general scale was grouped into five categories, each one representing certain aspects related to a specific dimension commonly addressable to adulthood: Biological and Age Transitions, Norm Compliance, Relational Maturity, Role Transitions and Family Capacities.…”

“…Therefore, Arnett's conceptual model shows high face validity, whereas statistical evidence for this model might lack (e.g., Barker & Galambos, 2005). However, since to our knowledge only one study has tested this kind of measure with a cross-national design between a sample of North American and Chinese young adults (Badger, Nelson & Barry, 2006), we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to investigate whether the items were interpretable along these five dimensions in our European sample. The model yielded an acceptable fit (χ 2 = 241.09, df = 71, p < .001, CFI = .94, TLI = .91; RMSEA = .06), suggesting that the items load well on the five factors.…”

Failure to Launch, Failure to Achieve Criteria for Adulthood?

“…Furthermore, attempts to replicate Arnett's conceptually derived domains using factor analyses failed both at Time 1 and Time 2, with poor overall fit and very low factor loadings, particularly for the independence and interdependence factors. Other studies also failed to replicate these factors (Badger, Nelson, & Barry, 2006;Mayseless & Scharf, 2003). Hence, it can be concluded that although Arnett's conceptual model shows high face validity (e.g., Barker & Galambos, 2005), statistical evidence for this model is lacking.…”