Economic Expectations of Young Adults

Abstract

In uncertain economic times, who are those young adults that show positive expectations about their economic future? And who are those who worry? Based on previous stratification research and extending economic sociology insights into the realm of young people’s economic expectations, we focus on the impact of family class background and a sense of current meaningful community relations on young adults’ general and job-specific economic expectations. Analysis of Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data reveals that a sense of community belonging has a robust and positive impact on economic optimism of young adults, but the role of family socioeconomic background is weaker. We conclude that imagining one’s economic future is less about realistic calculation determined by early structural conditions but more about identity work of young people who assert their moral worth in how they imagine their economic lives and manage uncertainty and well-being in ongoing social relations.

Families Across the Income Spectrum: A Decade in Review

“…Despite new and continuing structural barriers to their accomplishment, many young adults maintained optimism about their own futures and defined adulthood psychologically, scholars found. Researchers concluded that young people's aspirations for the future were less rational assessments than they were performances of a virtuous identity of a moral self (Bandelj & Lanuza, ; Frye, ). With traditional markers of adulthood—such as marriage, steady employment, or one's own home—no longer readily available, working‐class young adults in the United States framed coming of age as an emotional transformation stemming from personal struggles (Silva, , ).…”

Not by Bread Alone: Mobility Experiences, Religion, and Optimism about Future Mobility

“…Still, when mobility is elusive for individuals (or in the aggregate), there may be ways to protect the optimism that is so important for achievement. Not everyone can develop the same religious beliefs as Hispanic Catholic women, but optimism is also connected to a sense of community belonging (Bandelj and Lanuza 2018). If communities can promote a sense of belonging, perhaps they can preserve optimism regardless of religious affiliation or gender.…”

“…We examine if religion also helps Americans remain optimistic about their chances for mobility even after they have been downwardly mobile. In this way, we help address the need for research examining how economic factors and personal beliefs are related to group differences in economic optimism in times of economic uncertainty (Bandelj and Lanuza 2018).…”

Transcending History’s Heavy Hand: The Future in Economic Action

“…First, social structures often shape expectations. To give just two examples, social position and embeddedness in communities have repeatedly been shown to influence not just actors' anticipatory capabilities, but also their aspirations and hopes (Bandelj and Lanuza 2018;Bourdieu 1979;Mische 2009). To the same effect, the institutional regimes of advanced capitalist societies have been shown not strictly to determine firm strategy, but to influence wider understandings of what business models count as feasible, profitable, and realistic (Herrmann 2008).…”

“…This may be due either to class-based differences in the alignment between objective probabilities and aspirations or due to varying degrees of self-fulfilling aspirations. Challenging Bourdieu's structuralist explanations of expectations, Bandelj and Lanuza (2018) recently argued that embeddedness in communities may trump the effects of socio-economic background on young adults' economic aspirations. If robust, such results would resonate with the idea that social structures shape, but do not determine, expectations towards the future.…”