Browsing by Subject "Young Adults"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Tracking marital attitude change among high school students and predicting later union transitions.
    (2009-08) Willoughby, Brian J.
    Utilizing longitudinal data originally gathered from 1,010 high school freshman in a Midwestern metropolitan area, this study seeks to examine how marital attitudes change across late adolescence and into young adulthood and then how those marital attitudes might be used to predict the transition into cohabitation and marriage. Results suggest that as adolescents begin to enter young adulthood they place an increasingly important emphasis on marriage as a life goal and have a higher expectation to marry. Marital attitudes in late adolescence are also predictive of the transition to marriage but not to cohabitation. Results are examined within the context of common demographic factors such as gender, race, and family structure.
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    Using the Expectancy-Value Theory to Understand Young Adult’s Financial Behavior and Financial Well-Being
    (2017-05) Burcher, Sarah
    The current study seeks to understand how young adults navigate the university-to-work transition while experiencing financial and employment instability. Using the Expectancy Value Theory (EVT) as a foundation, the purpose of this study is to examine the independent direct effects of both early parental and personal expectations and values on young adults’ later financial behaviors and in turn the concurrent association between financial behavior and financial wellbeing using longitudinal data. The study used data from a subset of participants (N=754) in the Arizona Pathways to Life Success (APLUS) project collected at two time points five years apart. Results from a series of hierarchical linear ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions showed that early personal expectations significantly predicted later financial behavior and financial well-being. Parental expectations remained important for financial well-being, but not for financial behavior. Additionally, the study also considered whether employment status moderated the relationship between financial behaviors and one’s perception of financial well-being. Although a significant predictor, employment status did not have a moderating effect on the association between financial behavior and financial well-being. Implications for further study and limitations are discussed.