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-twentieth-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 appeared to have reversed. Between 1900 and 1980 there is also a homogenization of experience among subgroups.
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