Hallmarks of emerging adulthood include exploring and envisioning one’s future. However, how one sees the future may vary by social location, particularly at the intersection of gender and socioeconomic status (SES). We compared the perceived importance and likelihood of various future goals across three groups of women aged 18–22: 160 affluent undergraduates, 177 low-SES undergraduates, and 147 low-SES nonstudents. Participants from all three samples were largely optimistic about their futures and ranked the following goals as very important to them: their sense of subjectivity (e.g., independence, self-acceptance, fulfillment); having good relationships with one’s children; and being physically healthy. Affluent and low-SES undergraduates ranked peer-related affiliation highly, while low-SES nonstudents prioritized financial goals. While the priorities and optimism of young women in each sample overlap in some ways, they also reflect distinctions among the groups’ privilege and prospects.
AckerJ. (2006). Inequality regimes: Gender, class and race in organizations. Gender & Society, 20, 441–464. doi:10.1177/0891243206289499
2.
AndersonK. J. (2014). Modern misogyny: Anti-feminism in a post-feminist era. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
3.
ArmstrongE. A.HamiltonL. T. (2013). Paying for the party: How college maintains inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
4.
ArnettJ. J. (2004). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
5.
ArnettJ. J. (2016). Does emerging adulthood theory apply across social classes? National data on a persistent question. Emerging Adulthood, 4, 227–235. doi:10.1177/2167696815613000
6.
Bay-ChengL. Y.GoodkindS. A. (2016). Sex and the (neoliberal) single girl: Perspectives on being single among socioeconomically diverse young women. Sex Roles, 74, 181–194. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0565-y
7.
BemS. L. (1998). Enculturation and self-construction: The gendered personality. In ClinchyB. M.NoremJ. K. (Eds.), The gender and psychology reader (pp. 413–432). New York: NYU Press.
8.
BozickR.DeLucaS. (2011). Not making the transition to college: School, work, and opportunities in the lives of American youth. Social Science Research, 40, 1249–1262. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.02.003
9.
BullockH. E.LimbertW. M. (2003). Scaling the socioeconomic ladder: Low-income women’s perceptions of class status and opportunity. Journal of Social Issues, 59, 693–709. doi:10.1046/j.0022-4537.2003.00085.x
10.
BurnsA.TorreM. E. (2004). Shifting desires: Discourses of accountability in abstinence-only education in the United States. In HarrisA. (Ed.), All about the girl: Culture, power, and identity (pp. 127–137). New York, NY: Routledge.
11.
DeLucaS.Clampet-LundquistS.EdinK. (2016). Coming of age in the other America. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
12.
DesmondM. (2012). Disposable ties and the urban poor. American Journal of Sociology, 117, 1295–1335. doi:10.1086/663574
13.
DeterdingN. M. (2015). Instrumental and expressive education college planning in the face of poverty. Sociology of Education, 88, 284–301. doi:10.1177/0038040715603428
14.
DomínguezS.WatkinsC. (2003). Creating networks for survival and mobility: Social capital among African-American and Latin-American low-income mothers. Social Problems, 50, 111–135. doi:10.1525/sp.2003.50.1.111
15.
DugganL. (2003). The twilight of equality? Neoliberalism, cultural politics, and the attack on democracy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
16.
EdinK.KefalasM. (2005). Promises I can keep: Why poor women put motherhood before marriage. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
17.
GeronimusA. T. (2003). Damned if you do: Culture, identity, privilege, and teenage childbearing in the United States. Social Science & Medicine, 57, 881–893. doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(02)00456-2
18.
HollandM. M.DeLucaS. (2016). “Why wait years to become something?” Low-income African American youth and the costly career search in for-profit trade schools. Sociology of Education, 89, 261–278. doi:10.1177/0038040716666607
19.
JostJ. T.BanajiM. R.NosekB. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory: Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology, 25, 881–919. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2004.00402.x
20.
KasserT.RyanR. M. (1993). A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 410–422. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.65.2.410
21.
KasserT.RyanR. M. (1996). Further examining the American dream: Differential correlates of intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 280–287. doi:10.1177/0146167296223006
22.
MeierA.AllenG. (2008). Intimate relationship development during the transition to adulthood: Differences by social class. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 119, 25–39. doi:10.1002/cd.207
23.
NielsenK. (2015). “Fake it ‘til you make it” Why community college students’ aspirations “hold steady.” Sociology of Education, 88, 265–283. doi:10.1177/0038040715601889
24.
OfferS. (2012). The burden of reciprocity: Processes of exclusion and withdrawal from personal networks among low-income families. Current Sociology, 60, 788–805. doi:10.1177/0011392112454754
25.
OvinkS. M. (2014). “They always call me an investment” Gendered familism and Latino/a college pathways. Gender & Society, 28, 265–288. doi:10.1177/0891243213508308
26.
SheldonK. M. (2005). Positive value change during college: Normative trends and individual differences. Journal of Research in Personality, 39, 209–223. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2004.02.002
27.
SilvaJ. M. (2012). Constructing adulthood in an age of uncertainty. American Sociological Review, 77, 505–522. doi:10.1177/0003122412449014
28.
SilvaJ. M. (2016). High hopes and hidden inequalities: How social class shapes pathways to adulthood. Emerging Adulthood, 4, 239–241. doi:10.1177/2167696815620965
29.
SwartzT. T. (2008). Family capital and the invisible transfer of privilege: Intergenerational support and social class in early adulthood. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2008, 11–24. doi:10.1002/cd.206
