Discussion
The present review aimed at describing the family relationships of families with emerging adult children in light of the implications that the new features of the transition to adulthood may present to the family system. A first conclusion of this review concerns the changes in the relationships between children and their families in emerging adulthood, which were found to become more horizontal, closer, and less conflictual when compared with those during adolescence. In other words, these relationships appeared to evolve toward a relationship between adults, an important shift that families with children in the transition to adulthood are expected to attain (Carter & McGoldrick, 1988). This review suggested that families proceeded, in fact, to a relational redefinition that includes changes in the family hierarchy and power (Author citation, 2000), which is at the basis of Tanner’s (2006) conceptualization of recentering. Parents’ more optimistic views on their relationships with children found in this review are in line with previous literature, being likely to mirror intergenerational differences (Author citation, 2000): whereas parents are focused on familial and generational continuity, children strive to create an individualized self, differentiated from the family of origin.
This review has also provided some insight into the particular challenges that today’s families with emerging adults face, namely acknowledging the child’s emerging adult status and managing the interplay between autonomy and dependency needs. On the one hand, parents demonstrated some ambivalence regarding children’s growing autonomy (Kloep & Hendry, 2010; Lewis et al., 2016). On the other hand, despite attaining a more adult-adult relationship with their parents, emerging adults continued to feel that they had not reached adult status (Sestito & Sica, 2014).
A second conclusion of this review comprises the major role that family, and particularly family support, played in families navigating emerging adulthood. Underscoring the interdependence among family members in this joint enterprise (Scabini et al., 2006), findings stressed the importance of the family (Crocetti & Meeus, 2014; Smit, 2011; Tsai et al., 2013) to one’s identity and sense of belonging, with support being a relationship feature of major importance. Current support was predominantly provided by parents to children, often including financial assistance and co-residence (e.g., Fingerman et al., 2016). In fact, parents generally seemed to encourage the exploration process during emerging adulthood, supporting their children during the protracted period of transition to adult status in the present day. Additionally, results suggesting increases in children’s support to parents (Napolitano, 2015) and the familial obligation to support the family (Fuligni & Pederson, 2002) might reflect the development of filial maturity.
A third conclusion of this review concerns the role of different intervening factors shaping family relationships in varied ways, namely: family members’ sex, emerging adults’ age, living arrangements, family structure, SES, ethnicity, and cultural contexts. Female emerging adults seemed to be more connected to the family than males, as the former, for instance, reported to have more frequent communication with parents (Parra et al., 2015), to promote warmer siblings relationships (Milevsky et al., 2005), and to be more involved in supportive practices toward the family (Fuligni & Pedersen, 2002). Supporting the view that the mother-daughter relationship could be more affective relationship as compared with other parent-child dyads (Author citation, 2000; Scabini, 2000), results of this review showed that female emerging adults were closer to mothers than to fathers (e.g., Bertogg & Szydlik, 2016). In addition, results attesting to the more positive views of mothers on their relationship with offspring compared to fathers (L. J. Nelson et al., 2011) and separation-anxiety as a typical feature of the mother-child dyad (Kins et al., 2013) are in line with previous literature (e.g., Scabini, 2000) suggesting that mothers have a core role in the parent-child relationship, being more involved in their children’s lives than fathers. Concerning age, older children were found to receive less parental support than younger ones across most of the domains assessed (Fingerman et al., 2016), which might indicate a progressive successful attainment of an adult status. Moreover, older participants appeared to endorse warmer and less conflictual relationships with their siblings (Milevsky et al., 2005), possibly illustrating the development of more horizontal relationships across time.
With regard to living arrangements, co-residence with parents could bring both positive and negative implications for individual and family development. This intricated picture of results might stem from geographic and cultural factors, while simultaneously reflecting the new contours of the transition to adulthood. Accordingly, prolonged co-residence might be more common nowadays, involving benefits for both emerging adults and parents, but also potential costs for family relationships and for children’s autonomy.
Concerning family structure, parental divorce was found to be linked with negative relationship outcomes for both parent-child dyads (e.g., Bertogg & Szydlik, 2016) and siblings (e.g., Milevsky, 2004). Importantly, stemming from the study of Wells and Johnson (2001), differences between divorced and non-divorced families could be related with weaker bonds established between children and non-custodial parents. The findings of this review have also called attention into potential specificities of adoptive families’ relationships (e.g., higher conflict, more negative perceptions of the mother-child relationships).
Regarding SES, emerging adults from lower SES might be more aware of the need to assist their families and thus feel more constrained with regard to their individual pursuits (e.g., Fuglini and Pederson, 2002; Napolitano, 2015). This can be accentuated in contexts of economic crisis, which might restrict these emerging adults’ opportunities and potentially expose them to situations of social inequality. Finally, differences in family relationships related to ethnicity and cultural contexts were found in some studies (e.g., Fuligni & Pedersen, 2002; Levitt et al., 2007). However, the results revealed to be somewhat inconsistent, highlighting the need to examine racial and ethnic diversity in research dealing with family relationships in emerging adulthood (Aquilino, 2006).
Research Critique and Future Directions
The first critique to the reviewed research lies in the participant profile in the selected studies, which was mainly emerging adult children. Collecting data from only one family member to describe family relationships can be considered a research limitation, as we merely have a single family member’s particular view of the relationships (Scabini et al., 2006). Additionally, when other family members were included in the studies, these individuals were mainly mothers; fathers and/or other family roles appeared less frequently. Future studies on family relationships during the transition to adulthood would benefit from including more than one family members as participants and considering the family as the unit of analysis in order to understand relational dynamics. Moreover, the observed discrepancies between parents and their offspring regarding their relationships reinforce the relevance of this recommendation.
Secondly, little research attention has been given to family relationships beyond the parent-child dyad, namely that reflecting sibling and grandparent-grandchild relationships. As people grow up, sibling relationships become a matter of choice, in contrast to childhood (Aquilino, 2006). With life expectancy on the rise, and inextricably linked with the current common model of a family incorporating three or four generations (Author citation, 2000), grandparents are likely to become increasingly important providers of family support. Future studies may adopt a systemic and intergenerational approach, with the aim to identify the specificities of sibling and grandparent-grandchildren relationships in emerging adulthood and the role of these family members in the transition to adulthood.
Another research critique involves the frequent use of the terms ‘emerging adulthood’ and ‘young adulthood’ in an undifferentiated manner. For some authors (e.g., Arnett, 2015; Shulman & Ben-Artzi, 2003) it is important to emphasize that emerging adulthood represents a distinct life period, which precedes young adulthood. Moreover, studies were not all restricted to the 18-25 age range, which in our view represents a strength of this review. According to Arnett (2015, p. 7), “nothing magical happens when individuals reach age 25”, showing that the cutoff age for the end of emerging adulthood can vary. Researchers ought to carefully select the participants’ age ranges in their future studies, paying attention to the topic being addressed and to the specificities of their national contexts (e.g., median ages of marriage/parenthood).
Furthermore, we have reasons to assume that our reviewed research was international in scope, in that we found a higher percentage of studies developed outside the US as compared with the number found in Swanson’s (2016) review. Nevertheless, there was still a predominance of study samples involving White emerging adults attending college, which reflects a demographic pertaining to middle-class families in the US and might constitute a research bias in this review. These sociodemographic features are likely to influence the way in which both emerging adults and their families navigate this time of their lives. Future research attention on the experiences of those who do not attend higher education – the “forgotten half” (Arnett, 2000, p. 476) – as well as of social and ethnic minorities is warranted.
Additionally, our review included studies with participants from different family structures, which could be regarded as a literature strength. Considering the increasing diversity of family structures in today’s society and that family structure emerged in this review as an intervening factor likely to influence family relationships, future research would benefit from including participants from single, step, and extended families. Moreover, further studies are needed to grasp the benefits and drawbacks of the variety of living arrangements that may occur during emerging adulthood.
In sum, it is of utmost relevance that novel studies include more heterogeneous samples and provide clear descriptions of participants’ sociodemographic characteristics – an important procedure at which some of the reviewed studies failed. Finally, most of reviewed studies were cross-sectional. Longitudinal research would be valuable to map the changes and processes that occur during emerging adulthood within the family system.