Disability and the Transition to Adulthood in the United States

Abstract

This chapter provides a synthesis of the literature on the transition to adulthood among emerging adults with a disability in the United States. The life course paradigm was used to frame the discussion in the context of demographic trends and contemporary circumstances regarding major life transitions in the areas of education, employment, independent living, and sex, marriage, and parenthood. A critical assessment of the current state of the literature from a social versus medical model of disability in these central life domains provides a foundation from which sociologists can explore processes of cumulative inequality embedded in the relatively uncharted lives of transition-age youth with a disability.