Introduction

This book is a study of young adult women in Britain in the early 1990s. It includes what Hareven (1982) calls both ‘historical’ and ‘individual time’. Historically the last decade of the twentieth century is a time of significant change in the position of women in society. Both economic and family change are relevant here. More women are employed for more of their (pre-retirement) lives. Many women experience different kinds of family relationships in their adulthood, for example, both cohabitation prior to marriage and lone parenthood after marriage have become common. This focuses the broad trends of historical change which a particular cohort of people born in the early 1970s are living through as young adults. Alongside this, in the lifespan of these individuals the phase of ‘young adulthood’ is a time when some women have become established in paid occupations but face the prospect of entering partnerships and family formation. Other women have already taken this route and are currently on the margins of the labour market but with increased participation a future possibility. These life course changes concern us in this dual sense, within the ‘individual time’ of young adulthood and its transitions, and within the ‘historical time’ of broader changes occurring in women’s place in society. ¹