What is it like to become an adult in twenty-first century America? This book takes us to four very different places--New York City, San Diego, rural Iowa, and Saint Paul, Minnesota--to explore the dramatic shifts in coming-of-age experiences across the country. Drawing from in depth interviews with people in their twenties and early thirties, it probes experiences and decisions surrounding education, work, marriage, parenthood, and housing. The study focuses in particular on differences in class, race and ethnicity, gender, and other factors to illuminates the role of local contexts in shaping what is often a period of prolonged transition--with marriage postponed, education prolonged, and full time employment taking longer to attain. The first study to systematically explore this phenomenon from a qualitative perspective, Coming of Age in America offers a clear view of how traditional patterns and expectations are changing, of the range of forces that are shaping these changes, and of how young people themselves view their lives.