Article

Emerging Adulthood
2014, Vol. 2(1) 59-62
Work and Love Among Emerging Adults: ª 2013 Society for the
Study of Emerging Adulthood
and SAGE Publications
Current Status and Future Directions Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/2167696813516092
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Manfred H. M. van Dulmen1, Shannon E. Claxton1,

W. Andrew Collins2, and Jeffry A. Simpson2

Abstract
The literature on the association between work and love during the young adulthood years is relatively sparse. The articles in this
special issue make a substantial contribution to the empirical evidence in this arena. In this commentary, we make several
conceptual and methodological recommendations to further research in this area. In particular, we argue that researchers should
carefully consider the spacing and timing of assessments and the incorporation of more short-term, intensive assessments.
Furthermore, we recommend that the conceptualization of work needs to be broadened to include a focus on career paths.
Finally, we suggest a continued focus on using dyadic designs as well as a broadening of relationships to include the way in which
casual sexual relationships and experiences affect work and education outcomes.

Keywords
work, education, romantic relationships, longitudinal, methodology

Despite several decades of work on career development and Should We Be Focusing on Work?
romantic relationships, empirical studies on emerging adult-
The focus of this special issue is on connections between
hood have not integrated these two bodies of work. The articles
work and romantic relationships. Scholars interested in the
in this special section make a substantial contribution to (a)
postadolescent years have generally focused on integrating
understanding how these two domains are related and (b) what
these two domains. In large part, this derives from scholars
their links are with important outcomes in young adulthood,
who have built on the adult literature on work–family balance
including life satisfaction and health. Moreover, these articles
(e.g., Marks, Huston, Johnson, & MacDermid, 2004) and
provide a worldwide perspective on this issue. Across coun-
the major themes that have been identified during this age
tries, emerging adults seem to be more involved in education
during the late teens and early 20s, and they are becoming even period (e.g., Arnett, 2000). Furthermore, and consistent with
a developmental lens on understanding changes during the
more involved in work during their later 20s. The empirical
young adulthood years, this work has also considered a devel-
findings from these articles demonstrate that experiences in
opmental precursor of work, namely education.
work have particularly important implications for well-being
Although focusing on both education and work is important,
and life satisfaction. These findings are important because they
we believe that this perspective is too narrow and attention
not only confirm empirical findings in later adulthood but also
should shift to the interplay between careers and romantic
validate the importance of experiences in work during young
relationships. This is something that Ranta, Dietrich, and
adulthood.
While this set of articles provides an important global per- Salmela-Aro (2014) do particularly well. Ranta and colleagues
argue that financial issues should be considered together with
spective of work and love among emerging adults, the findings
work and education to encompass a broader conceptualization
also suggest that the evidence for a link between love and work
is complicated. Key issues in understanding associations
between work and love may be hampered by how—as social and
behavioral scientists—we design our studies and how we frame 1
Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA
2
our research questions. In this commentary, we suggest some University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
future directions for this area of research. Some of these recom-
Corresponding Author:
mendations are not limited to research on work and love but have Manfred H. M. van Dulmen, PhD, Department of Psychology, Kent State
broader implications for the study of young adulthood from a University, P.O. Box 5190, Kent, OH 44242, USA.
developmental lens. Email: mvandul@kent.edu

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60
of careers (Ranta, Dietrich, & Salmela-Aro, 2014). Thinking
more inclusively about how to conceptualize work—or
careers—is not new. Hamilton and Hamilton (2006) have
already suggested a transition from focusing on careers to
studying career paths and the joint effect (and ordering) of
education and employment (Hamilton & Hamilton, 2006).
What is appealing about this conceptualization is the notion
that education and employment are inherently related (see also
Branje, Laninga-Wijnen, Yu, & Meeus, 2014). Moving from
focusing on work/education/careers to studying career paths
is likely to provide a more dynamic perspective on the work/
education pathway that many young adults take.
Focusing on Age Periods Versus Age
Arnett’s (2000) landmark article generated a substantial
increase in research on the late teens and 20s. It gave many
scholars a framework to understand the important developmen-
tal changes that occur during this age period, including what
the key markers of success are. Establishing meaningful and
satisfying close relationships and careers are two essential
developmental tasks during this critical age period. Based on
the findings from the articles in this special issue, it is clear that
these two domains are related to each other during this age
period. What remains less clear is the nature of the associations
between changes in love and work during these formative
years. As people’s sense of self begins to crystalize during this
age period, one might expect the relation between love and
work to strengthen with age. If anything, however, the articles
in this special issue reveal that the links between love and work
actually weaken with age, at least during emerging adulthood.
We believe that these relatively weak effects may be attributa-
ble to either (a) the markers of change examined and/or (b)
length of time intervals between assessments. In contrast, daily
diary studies of negative work–family spillover suggest that
these effects are relatively stable during early and young
adulthood but tend to decline in later life (Grzywacz, Almeida,
& McDonald, 2002).
Markers of Change: Age or Not So Age?
Not unique to this special issue, most longitudinal designs are
centered on age. More specifically, most assessments—and
time points for analyses—are centered on age. Using such
designs makes sense when there are age-related changes in
certain concepts (e.g., changes in verbal ability; changes in the
levels of depression). Clearly, studying changes in self-efficacy
(see Seiffge-Krenke & Luyckx, 2014) makes sense if age is
treated as the marker of change.
The question, however, is whether centering on age makes
sense when studying work and love in emerging adulthood.
Most young adult career pathways tend to be meaningfully
structured around education and work. Furthermore, the
empirical literature suggests that transitioning between events
rather than numerical age per se is important to comprehend
connections between work/education and life satisfaction/
well-being. For example, the literature on the transition from
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Emerging Adulthood 2(1)
high school to college shows that how individuals adjust to this
major life transition has important implications for their satis-
faction and psychological well-being (e.g., Bowman, 2010;
Cleary, Walter, & Jackson, 2011). Furthermore, research on the
transition from higher education to the work environment indi-
cates that many individuals are unprepared for this transition,
which can lead to long-term distress and insecurity (see
Hettich, 2010). How individuals manage this transition is espe-
cially important because it is one of the major areas of identity
exploration as individuals navigate toward adulthood, and it is
a significant developmental marker (Arnett, 2000). For these
reasons, it is important to examine how individuals adapt when
transitioning from school to work when analyzing the associa-
tions between work and romantic experiences. The status of
this shift may be a more accurate indicator of development than
an individual’s chronological age.
Distal or Proximal Relationships: Why and How?
As noted by many of the authors in this special section, the lit-
erature on work and love predominantly has been cross-
sectional in nature. The evidence for long-term effects (i.e., 1
year or more) of love on work (or vice versa) is relatively lim-
ited in these articles (see e.g., Facio & Resett, 2014). Thus, it
could be that connections between love and work (particularly
spillover) primarily are more short-term in nature (although see
for an exception, Goodman & Crouter, 2009). Indeed, several
short-term longitudinal studies using daily diary designs have
shown evidence of work–family spillover both within and
across days (e.g., Grzywacz et al., 2002; Lavee & Ben-Ari,
2007; Saxbe, Repetti, & Nishina, 2008).
The findings from this special issue—in combination with
much previous evidence in the family–work literature—sug-
gest that work and love may have short-term effects. What the
field now needs are fine-grained short-term (i.e., week or
month-long) longitudinal studies rather than long-term longitu-
dinal studies that have large periods of time between each
assessment.
Similar Constructs at Different Ages?
In studying people’s life trajectories, much attention has been
paid to assessing critical constructs across time. On one hand,
measuring similar constructs at different time points enables
researchers to use latent variable modeling techniques
(e.g., latent growth curve analysis, latent class growth curve
analysis) that work ‘‘best’’ when the constructs are psychome-
trically similar at different time points. On the other hand,
assuming that measured constructs are the same at different
time points does not always fit with the optimal operationaliza-
tion of constructs at different time points. Assessments of com-
petence are particularly prone to this issue (see Obradovic
et al., 2006). Take the case of work competence. One might
expect that work competence should look different for some-
one just starting a job versus someone who is well situated in
the same job. Some aspects of the job (e.g., skill-level) should
increase quantitatively, but in all likelihood an individual’s
van Dulmen et al.
work competence should also broaden with experience in terms
of competencies. Thus, assessing work (competence) the same
at different time points may not fully capture what we antici-
pate work competence ought to look like at different points
during a career. In other words, it may be important to consider
work competence in the context of where someone is at in their
career rather than where they are at in terms of their age. More-
over, rather than focusing how work competence changes as a
function of age, it may be more useful to focus on how work
competence develops as a function of career paths/transitions.
Dyadic Designs
Another key issue in studying relations between work and love
during the young adulthood years is the proper level of analy-
sis. The large majority of studies, including all the articles in
this special issue, treat the individual as the level (unit) of anal-
ysis. To better understand how and why work and love are
interconnected, it is necessary to treat the dyad as the primary
level of analysis (for an example in the adult literature, see Gar-
eis, Barnett, & Brennan, 2003). This is important because a
complete understanding of how romantic relationships are
related to both work and well-being can only be achieved if the
relationship—rather than each partner in a relationship—is the
unit of analysis. There are many good dyadic data analytic
techniques that can aid researchers in disentangling individual
and couple level effects such as hierarchical linear modeling,
the actor–partner interdependence model, and structural equa-
tion modeling techniques (for a review, see Kenny, Kashy, &
Cook, 2006). Such dyadic models also enable scholars to more
appropriately test for gender differences when trying to discern
ties between love and work (for an example of studying the
importance of gender in the love–work link see Shulman,
Laursen, & Dickson, 2014).
One challenge of studying younger adults (compared to
studying older adults) is that young adult romantic relation-
ships tend to be more unstable. This should not, however,
impede scholars from using dyadic designs, particularly if one
is interested in studying short-term love and work outcomes, as
discussed earlier in this commentary. Furthermore, these
designs will enable researchers to more fully understand the
role of gender in the link between couple relationships and
work as well as their impact on individual level outcomes
including health. Considering the role of gender is an important
aspect of the link between work and love, as previous studies
suggest the link between love and work, as well as potential
moderators of this relationship, differs between women and
men (see e.g., Saxbe et al., 2008).
Work–Love Relationships Before Committed Romantic
Relationships
Many young adults have romantic or sexual experiences that
occur outside of ongoing, committed romantic relationships
(for a review, see Claxton & van Dulmen, 2013). Claxton and
van Dulmen (2013) refer to these experiences and relationships
as casual sexual relationships and experiences (CSREs).
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61
Surprisingly little is known, however, about the association
between CSRE engagement and functioning in work/education
(Fielder, Walsh, Carey, & Carey, 2013). Fielder and colleagues
have found that individuals who had lower high school grade
point averages were somewhat more likely to have casual
‘‘hookup’’ relationships during the first year of college (Fielder
et al., 2013). Other research has suggested that individuals who
are highly career focused may place less emphasis on commit-
ted relationships, especially during emerging adulthood. Spe-
cifically, one of the most common reasons individuals give
for engaging in CSREs is that they are able to engage in sexual
behaviors without the time commitment and loss of indepen-
dence associated with a committed relationship (e.g., Bisson
& Levine, 2009, Glenn & Marquardt, 2001, Hamilton &
Armstrong, 2009). Therefore, it may be that individuals who
are highly career minded may engage in CSREs as a way to
maintain focused on career goals. However, to date this possi-
bility has not been fully explored (see Fielder & Carey, 2010).
More studies are needed that focus on how CSREs are related
to work and education outcomes (and vice versa).
Conclusion
In conclusion, this scholarly work published in this special
issue moves the field forward by integrating scientific work
on the interplay between love and work during people’s late
teens and 20s. At the same time, the articles in this special
issue—and its results—also reflect that developmental science
is in the beginning stages of understanding how and why these
two domains are related, and how to best design future studies
to understand the linkages between these two key developmen-
tal tasks of the late teens and 20s.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
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Author Biographies
Manfred H. M. van Dulmen, PhD, is Associate Professor of
Psychology at Kent State University. His research focuses on
interpersonal relationships during adolescence and young
adulthood, developmental psychopathology, and measurement
and methodological issues in developmental science.
Shannon E. Claxton is an Experimental Social Graduate Stu-
dent in the Department of Psychology at Kent State University.
Her research interests include adolescent and young adult
romantic relationships, attraction, casual sexual relationships
and experiences, and quantitative methodology.
W. Andrew Collins, PhD, is Distinguished University Teach-
ing Professor in the Institute of Child Development at the
University of Minnesota. His research focuses on trajectories
and processes of change in close relationships.
Jeffry A. Simpson, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Direc-
tor of the Doctoral Minor in Interpersonal Relationships (IREL)
at the University of Minnesota. His research interests center on
adult attachment processes, human mating, idealization in rela-
tionships, empathic accuracy in relationships, social influence
in relationships, and how interpersonal experiences earlier in life
affect adult health and relationship outcomes.