Emerging Adulthood in Mexican and Spanish Youth

A delay in the end of the adolescent period, and hence the onset of common adult roles, is a trend in most of today's Western industrialized societies. Related to this fact, in recent years emerging adulthood has been proposed as a distinct developmental period between adolescence and young adulthood. Typical normative markers of adulthood are seemingly being replaced by more personal ones, defining the transition in more individualistic terms. This study applied an adaptation of the Inventory of Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (Reifman, Arnett, & Colwell, 2006) to 720 Mexican and Spanish males and females aged 16 to 34, whose educational level ranged from high school to postgraduate work, to investigate their agreement with descriptions of the stated period as regarding their own lives. Factor analysis revealed seven subscales related to transition to adulthood. Developmental and national differences are also linked to Mexican and Spanish realities. These youths' representations of adolescence and adulthood support to some extent the concept of a new period between these stages. Findings are discussed in terms of cultural and theoretical implications.