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Title: Educational Expectation Trajectories and Attainment in the Transition to Adulthood

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2013

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Abstract: How consequential is family socioeconomic status for maintaining plans to get a bachelors degree during the transition to adulthood? This article examines persistence and change in educational expectations, focusing on the extent to which family socioeconomic status shapes overtime trajectories of bachelors degree expectations, how the influence involves the timing of family formation and full-time work versus college attendance, and how persistence in expectations is consequential for getting a four-year degree. The findings, based on the high school senior classes of 1987-1990, demonstrate that adolescents from higher socioeconomic status families are much more likely to hold onto their expectations to earn four-year degrees, both in the early years after high school and, for those who do not earn degrees within that period, on through their twenties. These more persistent expectations in young adulthood, more so than adolescent expectations, help explain the greater success of young people from higher socioeconomic status backgrounds in earning a four-year degree. Persistence of expectations to earn a bachelors degree in the years after high school is shaped by stratified pathways of school, work, and family roles in the transition to adulthood.

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Authors: Reynolds, John R.; Kirkpatrick Johnson, Monica

Periodical (Full): Social science research

Issue: 3

Volume: 42

Pages: 818-835

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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