The quarter-life crisis
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:01 AM

HR professionals involved in workforce development are sensitive to their individual employees' needs, looking at their career development in the context of their life development. Typically we think of more demands being placed on individuals as they age - dependents, school costs, health concerns, saving for retirement, caring for elders. But how many are aware of a newly emerging area of study on the demands of being 20-something?:

There is a new movement afoot of professionals studying today's 20-somethings. They maintain that there's a phase of life - quarter-life - which, like adolescence and midlife, has its own set of challenges and characteristics. People get married later and have more transient careers than before. They are in debt longer, sometimes in school longer. The early to late 20s represents a time of extreme instability.