ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses empirical tests of some hypotheses about subgroup variations in the timing and sequencing of early life transitions among twentieth-century American males. It presents the estimates of the probability of an off-time versus an on-time transition. The chapter focuses on the probability of marrying before school completion versus marrying after school completion. The timing of early life transitions varies substantially among cohorts and social groups. Men from lower status social class backgrounds will have the least access to family resources facilitating their early life transitions, and are expected to display the highest rates of nonnormative transition behavior. No existing data describes the actual population normative prescriptions about transition behavior. In order to simplify the tables, only the results for high school graduates, college graduates, and five or more years of college are shown. The effect of community size and ethnic ancestry vary among levels of education for each of the five transition variables.
