'Emerging adulthood' is a cover for bored reluctance and lack of economic empowerment for young adults in the West.

Some people have described a new stage of development called emerging adulthood - the idea is that instead of leaving school or university and going out and getting a job immediately, young adults don't feel under any pressure to make their minds up quickly.

I can't quite put my finger on what this is all about, but I think there are a few interesting things about it:

• The decay in marriage. No, not that bullshit the conservatives are always spinning about how GAYS ARE DESTOYRING TEH HOLY INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE!!!1 That's not the issue. People are realising that marriage is kind of a waste of time for them. I know one guy who is in his late twenties. He's straight, got a girlfriend, but vows never to get married or have kids. Not only that, but at the age of 24, he got a vasectomy. Ask him why, and you'll get a lot of quite solid reasons for both the desire never to get married - and for the vasectomy.


• A fair few people my age think we are the losers in the generation game. Read Douglas Coupland. I mean, my parents generation managed to surf the wave of change in society and make enormous amounts. While pension funds and social security systems break down, they are cashing out and buying yachts. Meanwhile, it's our generation which gets lumped with paying for it all.


• Training is dumbed-down, less relevant than ever and MORE EXPENSIVE while politicians blow trumpets about how important and useful it is. The people who are 22 now are the last generation to have a cheapish university education at about UK £1000 ($2000) a year. The government have "topped-up" the fees to £3000 ($6000). "Top-up" and "tripled" aren't synonyms in my book.


• Employment is harder to find, and employers more demanding. People now demand "passion" in one's work - passion, of course, equates to long hours and low pay. And the distinct possibility that next week, your primary job role gets shipped off to India. And what are we doing to protect ourselves? Fuck all. On-the-job training is going down the pan, so we have to train ourselves. There's a pretty good reason why people write open source software these days beyond simple altruism...


• Finally, who wants to have kids when the ocean is going to rise up and swallow them in the not-too-distant future? Our parent's generation seem quite able to put on pop concerts about poverty and climate change but less able to actually fucking do anything about them.

No wonder people are doing the "emerging adulthood" thing. We all have to grow up eventually, but we can do it reluctantly and - hopefully - on our terms, rather than the standard terms and conditions inherited from the Live Aid generation.

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