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Objective The goal was to explore if perceived romantic relationship importance moderated associations between single status and young adults' positive well‐being. Background Singlehood is often framed within a deficit framework, with the expectation that being single during young adulthood may be costly for well‐being. That approach, however, does not account for young adults' romantic goals, which may shape how being single is connected to well‐being. Method Participants were 909 American young adults, ages 18–35 (M = 26.6, 51% female, 81% heterosexual, 58% White, non‐Hispanic), who completed an online survey in December 2019. Results Being single, compared to having a romantic partner, was associated with lower love life satisfaction, general life satisfaction, and flourishing. However, the associations with general life and love life satisfaction were attenuated by relationship dismissal. Conclusion Although single young adults reported lower general and love life satisfaction and flourishing, when perceptions of relationship importance were taken into account, relationship dismissal ameliorated the effect of being single on love life satisfaction and general life satisfaction. Placing less importance on romantic relationships may be a promotive factor for single young adults' positive well‐being. Implications These findings have implications for supporting young adults' positive well‐being, particularly by framing singlehood as normative and, in some cases, preferable to romantic involvement.

We focused on coparenting support, partner relationship quality, and father engagement in families with young children that did not change structurally over 4 years of participation in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (N = 1,756). There was a significantly stronger and more robust positive association between fathers' perceived coparenting support at age 1 and father engagement at age 3 among nonresidential nonromantic parents compared with residential (married or cohabiting) and nonresidential romantic parents. There was a significantly stronger and positive association between relationship quality at age 1 and father engagement at age 3 among non-residential nonromantic parents compared with residential parents. The findings emphasize the importance of considering both family structure and romantic involvement contexts of fathering when tracking father engagement over time.

Romantic involvement and mental health are dynamically linked, but this interplay can vary across the life course in ways that speak to the social and psychological underpinnings of healthy development. To explore this variation, this study examined how romantic involvement was associated with trajectories of depressive symptomatology across the transition between adolescence and young adulthood. Growth mixture modeling of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health identified trajectories of depressive symptomatology as teens grew into their late 20s and early 30s (N = 8,712). Multinomial logistic techniques regressed these trajectories on adolescent and young adult romantic experiences. Adolescent dating was associated with increased depressive symptoms early on, particularly for girls, but this risk faded over time. For both boys and girls, trajectories of decreasing symptoms were associated with young adult unions but also the coupling of adolescent dating with young adult singlehood.

Past research has consistently shown that romantic experiences during adolescence affect the nature and quality of romantic relationships during emerging adulthood. However, less is known about the role of adolescent sexual experiences in future sexual and romantic relationships. The current study examined the impact of different forms of sexual activity at age 16 (within a romantic relationship or casual encounters) on the nature and quality of sexual experiences in romantic relationships at age 23. One hundred and forty four (59.7% females) 16 year olds reported on their sexual activity within a romantic relationship or sexual encounters. In addition they reported on the quality of relationships they were involved in and their tendency to suppress emotions (included as an aspect of personality). At age 23 they reported on their romantic and sexual experiences during the past 2 years (number of short lived relationships, numbers of friends with benefits, casual sex encounters) and the quality of their romantic relationships (the duration of their longest relationship, partner support and feelings of certainty in the relationships). Findings showed that the tendency to suppress emotions was associated with lower likelihood to engage in casual sex at age 23. However, greater sexual experience in casual encounters during adolescence was consistently longitudinally associated with different forms of casual sexual encounters and short romantic involvements above and beyond the contribution of personality. In contrast, sexual activity within a romantic relationship predicted only a few indices of the quality of romantic involvement at age 23. The distinctive role of casual sexual activity and sexual activity within a romantic relationship for future sexual and romantic activities is discussed.

Studies support a link between adolescent romantic involvement and depression. Adolescent romantic relationships may increase depression risk by introducing chronic stress, and genetic vulnerability to stress reactivity/emotion dysregulation may moderate these associations. We tested genetic moderation of longitudinal associations between adolescent romantic involvement and later depressive symptoms by a polymorphism in the serotonin transporter linked polymorphic region gene (5-HTTLPR) and examined contributory roles of chronic stress and family discord. Three hundred eighty-one youth participated at ages 15 and 20. The results indicated that 5-HTTLPR moderated the association between age 15 romantic involvement and age 20 depressive symptoms, with strongest effects for short homozygotes. Conditional process analysis revealed that chronic stress functioned as a moderated mediator of this association, fully accounting for the romantic involvement–depression link among short/short genotypes. Also, romantic involvement predicted later depressive symptoms most strongly among short-allele carriers with high family discord. The results have important implications for understanding the romantic involvement–depression link and the behavioral and emotional correlates of the 5-HTTLPR genotype.

Research has accumulated to demonstrate that depressive symptoms are associated with heterosexual romantic involvement during adolescence, but relatively little work has linked this body of literature to the existing literature on associations between early pubertal timing and adolescent depressive symptoms. This study extends prior research by examining whether early menarche and heterosexual romantic involvement interact to predict depressive symptoms in a national sample of Black adolescent girls (N = 607; M age = 15 years; 32 % Caribbean Black and 68 % African American). We further examined whether the adverse effects of heterosexual romantic involvement and early menarche would be mediated by perceived social support from mothers, fathers, and peers. Path analysis results indicated that girls who report current involvement in a heterosexual romantic relationship also reported high levels of perceived peer support than girls with no romantic involvement. High levels of perceived peer support, in turn, predicted low levels of depressive symptoms. Romantically involved girls with an early menarche also reported significantly less depressive symptoms than girls not romantically involved with an early menarche. Neither perceived maternal support nor perceived paternal support mediated associations between heterosexual romantic involvement, menarche, and depressive symptoms. The findings suggest that individual and social factors can impede heterosexual romantic involvement effects on depressive symptoms in Black adolescent girls.

Although the relation between family relationships and the timing of sexual debut has been the focus of many studies, research on mediating factors is scarce. This study examines whether low levels of family cohesion result in an earlier onset of romantic and sexual experiences, and whether the link between family cohesion and an early sexual debut is mediated by early romantic initiation. A longitudinal sample of 314 adolescent girls and 222 boys, aged 12–17 at Wave 1, completed questionnaires at three measurement points with three year intervals. The results showed that sexual debut followed romantic initiation for 77% of the participants. For early adolescent females (aged 12–14), high levels of family cohesion resulted in a later sexual debut and this association was fully mediated by a delay of romantic initiation. Among boys and older girls, timing of romantic initiation did not mediate the link between family cohesion and timing of sexual initiation. Early adolescent girls who have negative relationships with their parents turn to romantic relationships for intimacy and support, which subsequently provide the opportunity for an early sexual debut. Low levels of family cohesion thus primarily precipitate romantic initiation and sexual initiation appears to be secondary to this process among girls in this age group.

This study examined whether coparenting support and social support had a stronger effect on father engagement with 3-year-olds among adolescent fathers compared with adult fathers. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1540), we found that coparenting support and paternal social support had a significantly stronger positive effect on adolescent fathers than adult fathers. The associations among coparenting, social support, and adolescent father engagement did not depend on whether the father and mother were romantically involved with each other. The results support the idea that programs for adolescent parents should focus on coparenting and social support as a way to help fathers to stay involved with their children.

This study examined the experience of mothering in adolescence in the context of romantic involvement and social support. 30 adolescent mothers completed measures of adolescent self-development and motherhood, romantic relationship experience, availability of and satisfaction with social support, and parenting stress. Findings suggest that young mothers benefit greatly from the support of a partner, as evidenced by a more functional understanding of motherhood and the maternal role, greater satisfaction with social support, and lower levels of psychological distress. Education on social support should be made available to young mothers to address stress associated with adolescent parenting.

In this book, we look at the ways current girls and young women are responding to the unprecedented transformation of women’s lives from the traditional roles of earlier times to the still largely uncharted waters of the twenty-first century. We begin with a sketch of the situation.