Emerging Adulthood in Russia: Class and Educational Disparities

“Emerging adulthood” is a unique developmental stage between adolescence and early adulthood. During this period, individuals experience a transition towards adult roles and begin to view their lives as full of opportunities for identity exploration, experimentation, possibilities, and self-focus. Previous research has questioned the universality of emerging adulthood as a developmental stage and its’ applicability to young adults from lower socioeconomic backgrounds without higher education. This paper contributes to this debate by analyzing the relationships between education, socioeconomic background, and emerging adulthood. We use the Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA) to measure emerging adulthood among 2177 Russian young people aged 24-26 who participated in the Russian Longitudinal Panel Study of Educational and Occupational Trajectories (TrEC) in 2021. Our findings confirm that emerging adulthood is not limited to the US, where the concept was coined, but also occurs in developing countries.