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The Young Adult Years: Diversity, Structural Change, and Fertility

Population Association of America 1991 Presidential Address

  • Presidential Address
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Demography

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Hamiltion Hall CB#3210, 27599-3210, Chapel Hill, NC

    Ronald R. Rindfuss

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  1. Ronald R. Rindfuss
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Additional information

Although this is, by tradition, a single-authored article, numerous individuals and groups provided invaluable assistance in its preparation. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, through Grants HD-24325 and HD-25482, provided financial support for research that lies behind the present article. My colleagues on both projects, Aphichat Charnratrithirong, Elizabeth Cooksey, Barbara Entwisle, David Guilkey, and Yothin Sawangdee, deserve credit for their contributions to these projects, upon which I drew heavily. Erika Stone performed the complex programming that allowed the presentation of the fairly simple summary numbers in this paper. David Claris provided all the graphics. Sharon Farrell prepared. the final manuscript. Andrew Kavee, Deanna Pagnini, and Rebecca Sutterlin provided valuable research assistance for this paper. J. Michael Bowling provided recent fertility data for North Carolina. Barbara Wilsonprovided recent marriage and divorce data. Colleagues John Akin, Peter Bearman, Elizabeth Cooksey, Glen Elder, Barbara Entwisle, David Guilkey, Allan Parnell, Barry Popkin, Rachel Rosenfeld, Amy Tsui, and J. Richard Udry gave valuable comments on earlier versions and/or patiently discussed with me the ideas in this paper. The Carolina Population Center and the Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, provided a stimulating environment for working through the ideas presented here. My family, Maggie, Luke, and Rob, cheerfully put up with me while I brooded over this paper. And finally, thanks to those PAA members who graciously tolerated the oral presentation. Multiplying the size of the audience by the length of the talk, I estimate that the audience’s listening task was equivalent to approximately one-third of a normal professional’s work year.

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Rindfuss, R.R. The Young Adult Years: Diversity, Structural Change, and Fertility. Demography 28, 493–512 (1991). https://doi.org/10.2307/2061419

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