State Investments in Successful Transitions to Adulthood

SES-0550538 Kevin T.爱荷华大学的社会学家对将儿童转变为成功的成年人的社会层面的过程有着长期的兴趣。最近家庭、教育和经济的变化改变了成功成年的时间和指标，研究人员还没有系统地了解这些变化如何帮助或阻碍独立的年轻人成功运作。更少的研究一直致力于环境因素，如公共政策，国家经济发展的努力，教育，并改变财政支持高等教育在帮助或阻碍成功过渡到成年。本研究有三个具体目标：（1）从教育程度、经济安全和稳定的伙伴关系方面定义和描述成功过渡到成年的过程，（2）确定成功过渡过程中的群体和个人差异，以及（3）衡量社会和经济环境对成功过渡到成年的影响，以及这些环境对不同种族的年轻人的影响。种族背景和移民身份。我们假设，成功过渡到成年人促进了国家和地方广泛的商业能力和高科技的工作优势，并阻碍了国家和地方广泛的商业政治主导地位，去工业化，和极端的高科技工资优势。我们还假设，成功地过渡到成年的传统弱势群体将更容易在国家和地区与前一组的特点相比，国家和地区与后一组的characteristics.The数据为这个项目是从1979年全国青年男女纵向研究和1997年全国青年纵向研究。这些数据将被连接起来，以提供对成功过渡到成年的每月分析。这些数据将与一个广泛而独特的数据集合并，该数据集包含1970-2004年国家级政治和经济背景的年度指标（见Jenkins，Leicht和Wendt，2006年即将出版）。该分析将使用离散风险模型和分层广义线性模型（HGLM），在各种维度上建立向成年过渡的一般模型（由教育程度至稳定的全职工作，就业的工作与健康保险和独立居住），并审查系统的变化，导致成人的过程中跨群体和跨种族/种族和移民群体。更广泛的影响这个项目提供了重要的见解，迅速变化的背景下周围的过渡到成年期，通过检查跨越三十年（20世纪80年代，90年代和21世纪初）的生活过程中的过渡范围广泛。分析将确定导致成功成年的途径的显着差异。更重要的是，这项研究将更好地了解国家政治和经济背景如何帮助或阻碍向成年过渡，并确定特别容易受到环境变化影响的青年，因为这些变化影响青年成为功能和生产性成年人的能力。

SES-0550538Kevin T. LeichtThe University of IowaSociologists have a long-standing interest in the societal-level process of transforming children into successful adults. Recent changes in families, education, and the economy have modified the timing and indicators of successful adulthood, and researchers have yet to systematically access how these changes have helped or hindered the successful functioning of independent young adults. Even less research has been devoted to contextual factors like public policies, state economic development efforts, education, and changing financial support for higher education in helping or hindering successful transitions to adulthood. This research has three specific aims; (1) to define and describe the successful transition to adulthood in terms of educational attainment, economic security, and stable partnership, (2) to identify group and individual disparities in successful transitions, and (3) to measure the impact of social and economic environments on successful transitions to adulthood and the effects these environments have on young people of differing racial and ethnic backgrounds and immigrant statuses. We hypothesize that successful transitions to adulthood are facilitated in states and localities with extensive business capacity and high-technology job advantages and hindered in states and localities with extensive business political dominance, deindustrialization, and extreme high-technology wage advantages. We also hypothesize that successful transition to adulthood for traditionally disadvantaged groups will be easier in the states and localities with the former set of characteristics compared to states and localities with the latter set of characteristics.The data for this project are drawn from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Young Men and Women and the 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth. These data will be concatenated to provide for a monthly analysis of successful transitions to adulthood. These data will be merged with an extensive and unique data set with assembled yearly indicators of state-level political and economic contexts covering the years 1970-2004 (see Jenkins, Leicht, and Wendt, 2006 forthcoming). The analysis will use discrete hazard modeling and hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) to build a general model of the transition to adulthood on a wide variety of dimensions (from educational attainment to stable employment in a full-time job, employment in a job with health insurance and to independent residence) and examine systematic changes in the process leading to adulthood across cohorts and across race/ethnic and immigrant groups.BROADER IMPACTSThis project provides important insights into the rapidly changing context surrounding transitions to adulthood by examining a broad spectrum of life-course transitions across three decades (the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s). The analysis will identify significant differences in the pathways leading to successful adulthood. More importantly, the research will provide a better understanding of the ways that state political and economic contexts help or hinder the transition to adulthood, and identify youth who are especially susceptible to contextual changes as these affect the ability of youth to become functioning and productive adults.