This article is a description and analysis of the timing of early life course
transitions in the twentieth century. Using data from national microdata samples of the
census for 1900, 1910, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, and 1980, the study investigates the timing
of seven transitions to adulthood, relationships between pairs of transitions, and how
changes in these patterns affected the behavior of several population subgroups. The results
show that youth in the second half of the century made the transition to adulthood earlier and
followed a more prescribed and compressed schedule of transitions than their early-twen
tieth-century counterparts. The period of greatest change came after the Second World War,
but by 1980 the trend toward earlier and increasingly age-graded familial transitions ap
peared to have reversed. Between 1900 and 1980 there is also a homogenization of experi
ence among subgroups.
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