The panel’s approach was to build on the positive while not ignoring the negative.

Thus, while the emphasis is on opportunity and how it can be enhanced, the panel did not
ignore the risks and constraints of contemporary life. Indeed, special attention was paid to
examining both success stories and failures from past policies and programs designed to
reduce risks and lift constraints, particularly as they apply to the disadvantaged. The
panel gives special emphasis throughout the report to the different experiences of young
men and women and to the circumstances of the poor regardless of gender. The panel
views the achievement and maintenance of health, in particular reproductive health
during the adolescent years, as integrally connected to success in other developmental
domains.
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Suggested Citation:"PART I Introduction and Conceptual Framework--1 Introduction." National Research

Council and Institute of Medicine. 2005. Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in
Developing Countries. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11174.

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We therefore emphasize in the report the interrelationships between these developmental

domains and policies and programs that may affect these interrelationships.
The panel defined adulthood as a set of culturally, historically, and gender-specific
activities, rights, and responsibilities that people acquire over time by means of a process
of transition. The transition to adulthood begins during adolescence, but it continues
beyond adolescence, sometimes even into the late 20s or early 30s. Therefore, in several
places in the subsequent descriptive analysis, we make reference to
 an early phase of the transition (between ages 10 and 14),
 a middle phase of the transition (between ages 15 and 20), and
 a later phase of the transition (21+).
It is important for a report such as this to define terms such as “children,” “adolescents,”
“youth,” and “young people” and then use them consistently since the definitions and
nuances of these terms vary from country to country and no common consensus exists.
Even within the international community there is no ready and straightforward
agreement. For example, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
covers all children, defined as anyone under the age of 18, while the International Labour
Organization (ILO)’s Minimum Age Convention (No. 138) distinguishes between
acceptable “child labor” that is performed by children under the age of 15 and “child
work” that may contribute to a child’s healthy development. Light work may be allowed
for children 12 and older (National Research Council, 2004). Given the panel’s broad
definition of the process of transition, developed to encompass diversities both within and
across countries, our definition and terminology differ slightly from those adopted by
some international agencies, for example the World Health Organization (UNICEF and
WHO, 1995), which has used the terms “adolescent” for those ages 10-19, “youth” for
those ages 15-24, and “young people” for those ages 10-24. Although the panel has
frequently used the terms in the same way, for the most part, we prefer to use the term
“young people” to refer to the relevant age range, roughly corresponding to 10- to 24-
year-olds, during which time the transition to adulthood generally occurs. Note again,
however, that in some cases, the transition can continue into one’s late 20s or even early
30s. Recent analysis of the transition to adulthood in the West shows that the transition is
being prolonged well into the third decade of life and sometimes even beyond (Arnett,
2000, 2004; Furstenberg et al., 2002). It is likely that a narrow focus on the age range 10
to 24 at this time in history in the developing world would risk missing important aspects
of recent change. Consequently, in some of our detailed statistical analysis, the panel
thought it more informative to present
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Suggested Citation:"PART I Introduction and Conceptual Framework--1 Introduction." National Research

Council and Institute of Medicine. 2005. Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in
Developing Countries. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11174.

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data for the broader age group 10 to 29. (See also Arnett, 2002, for a discussion of how
transitions to adult roles are becoming delayed, creating a distinct period of “emerging
adulthood” among the [minority but growing] middle class in developing countries.)
While the panel views marriage as an important marker of adulthood, we do not think
that marriage is sufficient in and of itself to confer adulthood on a young person who has
not yet achieved the age of majority or completed other transitions to adulthood. This is
an important caution, because much contemporary literature on adolescents focuses
primarily on the unmarried, neglecting the concerns of the married, particularly young
women, who are not yet fully prepared to assume adult roles and are particularly
vulnerable because society provides them with few protections.
WHAT CONSTITUTES A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION?
The concept of a successful transition to adulthood is inherent in the panel’s larger
mission: to advance understanding of the impact of rapid and pervasive global change on
the adolescent-to-young-adult phase of the life course and to propose interventions for
enhancing that transition in developing countries. In particular, the panel is not concerned
with traditional rites of passage, such as circumcision or (arranged) marriage, or solely
with the acquisition of skills that will enable young people to become more productive as
adults, but more fundamentally about the enhancement of capabilities that will allow
them “to lead lives they have reason to value and to enhance the substantive choices they
have” (Sen, 1997:1959). This represents a very different approach to the study of
adolescent development than that taken in the United States over the last few decades, in
which the focus has been primarily on problem behaviors rather than on normative
development (Steinberg and Morris, 2001). It is also very different from the approach to
the study of child outcomes in developing countries, which views parents as decision-
makers and children as having no agency of their own (Levison, 2000). Defining what is
meant by “a successful transition,” however, remains problematic, and it engages several
important considerations about adolescent development in general.
First, the transition to adulthood has to be seen as embedded in the larger
developmental life course, reflecting and constrained by what has gone before as well as
by what lies ahead. From this perspective, the experiences and events of earlier
adolescence—and of infancy and childhood—are not only precursors of, but also
preparation for, making that transition. From this perspective, too, the opportunities and
barriers of future adulthood, both real and perceived, also shape the course and content of
that transition. It follows, then, that efforts to safeguard or enhance a successful transition
cannot be confined to that brief segment of the life trajectory