Booth, A., Brown, S. L., Landale, N. S., Manning, W. D., McHale, S. M. (eds): Early Adulthood in a Family Context

Family formation is increasingly delayed in the contemporary developed world. A few decades ago, young adulthood (age 18–24) was a period of family formation. Nowadays, the usual steps of entry into adulthood—marriage, childbearing—come much later in the life-course. The age 18–24 is no longer a time of making commitments. In 2000, the psychologist Jeffrey Arnett used the term ‘‘emerging adulthood’’ to describe this life stage, emphasizing its new nature. The aim of the edited volume ‘‘Early adulthood in a family context’’ is to improve our knowledge about it. The book is based on papers presented at the 18th Annual Symposium on Family Issues in October 2011. It has an interesting construction. The five parts of the book represent the five thematic sessions at the symposium. As for the first four parts of the volume, each of them consists of one leading chapter and a few shorter ones. While the leading chapter is always the most extensive, the shorter contributions complement it with additional analyses, overviews of research findings, or methodological comments. As a result, each part of the book is a coherent piece and with each chapter the reader gets a wider or more detailed picture of the discussed topic. It is like witnessing an experts’ discussion in given field. The first part, ‘‘The contemporary context of young adulthood’’, and especially the first chapter by Settersten Jr., set the stage for the whole book. Settersten describes key demographic shifts in the transition to adulthood in contemporary USA and discusses the challenges posed by them to young people and their families of origin. He also comments on what can make youth’s transition to adulthood easier: individual skills and capacities, family support as well as institutional context. The other authors take it from there. The remaining chapters in the first section bring more insights on the challenges of ‘‘emerging adulthood’’ and on how successful transition to adulthood can be