Work and Family Commitment and Decision-Making Status Among Emerging Adults

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate work-family attitudes among emerging adults. Participants were 46 male and 49 female college juniors and seniors. Men and women had similar levels of work and family commitment. For women there was a negative correlation between work and family commitment. Exploratory analyses indicated different relationships between work decision-making status and commitment and family decision-making status and commitment. In addition, whereas men were more likely than women not yet to have thought about family roles, women were more likely than men to have decided about family roles. Implications of these findings for our understanding of the processes and meanings of emerging adult men's and women's decisions about entry into and commitment toward work and family roles are discussed.KEY WORDS: emerging adulthood; identity; work and family roles.Single young people in their late teens and twenties who are not yet in the workforce are in a stage of development akin to Arnett's (2000) "emerging adulthood." This is a time of change and identity exploration that precedes settling into long-term adult roles; Arnett sets this stage at approximately 18-25 years of age. Emerging adulthood has been molded and prolonged by the increasing delay in entry into adult roles in industrial and postindustrial nations (Marini, 1985). Yet little is known about how contemporary emerging adults 4 see themselves in relation to work and family roles. An examination of emerging adults' attitudes toward work and family can improve our understanding of this distinctive

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