Transmission and transitions: young adults' beliefs, values and life course transitions in familial context

UnrestrictedThis dissertation aimed to explain how young adults social origins influence their beliefs, values and behaviors in adulthood. More specifically, the objectives were: 1) to measure the extent to which there is intergenerational religious continuity in the family; 2) to identify the ways in which parental divorce and gender condition the religious transmission process in families; 3) to examine how the acquisition of adult roles, such as marriage and parenthood, influence young adults ' values toward individualistic and collectivism; 4) to assess how status attainment processes within the family influence the union formation process and 5) to determine how the effect of parents' education on their children 's union formation varies by gender and union type. Analyses were performed using two data sources: 1) the Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG) -- a multi-wave four-generation study, and 2) the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) -- a nationally representative study of parents and their children.; Multivariate models from the third chapter using the LSOG (N=565) showed strong resemblance of grandmothers, parents and children on religious beliefs and values. This chapter also demonstrated that parental divorce weakened the intergenerational transmission of religion within families. Using the LSOG, my fourth chapter uses fixed and random effects to study value changes in young adulthood (N=451). These models revealed a strong shift in values toward collectivism with the occurrence of life events such as marriage and parenthood. In contrast, young adults who cohabited with a partner became more individualistic over time. These findings suggest values are shaped by social roles adopted in young adulthood. Event-history models from the fifth chapter (N=2,388) using the NSFH indicated parents' college education reduces the monthly odds of young adults' union formation. This finding suggests the transmission of educational attainment from parents to children influences the timing of young adults' first unions. As a whole, my dissertation provides evidence parents -- and grandparents -- influence young adults' beliefs, values and behaviors. My dissertation also demonstrates young adults' values toward individualism and collectivism are malleable over the life course