If you’re in your 40s you are not a young person
The term ‘young person’ is not unusual to see in research or policy papers. It is a commonly used term that is understood in its ordinary sense, describing a group of people who are no longer children but aren't quite fully adult. Becoming an adult involves moving from one distinct stages of personal and social development related to sociocultural norms and expectations, to another (Elder, 1974; Elder, 1994; Settersten, Furstenberg and Rumbaut, 2005; Arnett, 2000). In the UK, childhood tends to end somewhere between 16 and 18; by 18 a person can vote, get married, smoke, leave education and do all the other things that seemed like they would be fun when you can’t do them. After turning 18 a child is catapulted into the ‘working age’ category, defined as 18-65 years old (another strangely broad age category), suggesting they are now part of the economically active population, in the prime of their lives and contributing to the economy. After turning 65, people should be slowing down their economic activity, contemplating whether they can draw a pension (if one exists) and whether it will fund their long cruises across the Mediterranean. Academia reflects these broad groupings: childhood studies generally focuses on those under 18 and gerontology studies looks at those over the age 65. But there is no ‘young person studies’.
I have never seen the term ‘young person’ used in a research or policy paper to describe someone older than 65 (but I’m no longer ruling out that possibility). A ‘young person’ is generally someone who could be a child or a working age adult. However, the definition of a ‘young person’ is generally narrower in age range than birth to 65. Though used prolifically, there is no consensus within the research community as to what ‘young person’ means. I recently attended the an international disability conference and the presentations I listened to used the term ‘young person’ to describe people aged between 13 and 43. I sat there, as a 38 year old, listening to research on ‘young people’ that described the experiences of 40 year olds with a learning disability. I have researched with young people and have generally defined a ‘young person’ as someone aged between 16 and 25 years old. This has always been in the context of learning disability research and is an approach that generally aligns with government’s definition (though sometimes the government considers 14 to 25 a young person). I’ve always been conscious that this is a broad range of ages. When I was 16 I was living at home with my mum and dressing exclusively in boys jeans. By the time I turned 25 I was in a relationship with my life partner and had been a parent for a year. I felt ‘young’ at 25 (I still do now) but when I turned up at the young mother groups the 19 year old mothers (the real ‘young’ mothers) did not consider me part of their crowd. I was considered an adult, put in the same categories as the mums in the 30s and 40s.
I know my life experiences has been and will continue to be different from those with a learning disability. I passionately love a person with a learning disability, a wonderfully joyous person, but I am not a disabled person. I’m just his mum. But I cannot help observing that when it comes to people with a learning disability the definition of a ‘young person’ broadens dramatically. Take away the learning disability and a 40 year old is a fully grown adult with responsibilities, piles of washing and an endless to-do-list (or is that just me?). Why are we using a different set of standards for how long a person with a learning disability remains a ‘young person’? I wonder if it is because we equate adulthood with a set of expectations that marginalise people with a learning disability. For example, most societies expect adults will be independent of their parents whereas this expectation does not exist for children (Hogan and Astone, 1986). But perhaps this expectation doesn’t exist for anyone; we all still want care for our parents and many people rely on their parents for financial support well into adulthood. Or perhaps it is because people with a learning disability achieve such poor outcomes as adults that we struggle to accept their adulthood. For example, many young people with a learning disability would like a job when they leave school. However, the employment gap for people with a learning disability has continued to grow (Hatton, 2018; Nuffield Trust, 2023) and people with a learning disability still experience exclusion, prejudice and discrimination in seeking employment (Tarlo, Rachel and Roberts, 2024).
Considering people with a learning disability as ‘young people’ when they’ve reached their 40s is likely to make transitions to adulthood for people with a learning disability more difficult. It could explain why young people with a learning disability are not sufficiently engaged in planning for their futures (Leiter, 2012), why there is a lack of relevant and accessible information available to help them make decisions (Freeman et al., 2018; Heslop et al., 2002) and the lack of guidance on how support should change to facilitate their adult independence (Codd and Hewitt, 2021; Heslop et al., 2002; Leonard et al., 2016). It’s not unusual for research to highlight difficult experiences under oppressive systems that result in poor outcomes for people with a learning disability. However, when researchers treat people with a learning disability differently by categorising them as ‘young people’ when they wouldn’t do that to a non-disabled person they perpetuate those systems. As researchers we argue that care and support needs do not equate to being less of an adult but when it comes to defining what a ‘young person’ is within our research our boundaries begin to blur. The voices of truly ‘young people’ with a learning disability are lost as adults with a learning disability are left lingering as ‘young people’ for most of their lives (and when the life expectancy for people with a learning disability is 63 this is most of their lives (White et al., 2023)).
A 38 year old woman leaving an academic conferences should not be pondering whether she is a young person (surely I am not). The academic community must reflect on what it means to be a ‘young person’ and consider the harm it does when it extends the boundaries of this term to endlessly capture the experiences of people with a learning disability. It is time for researchers to acknowledge that adults with a learning disability are adults.
References
Arnett, J. J. (2000) 'Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties', American psychologist, 55(5), pp. 469.
Codd, J. and Hewitt, O. (2021) 'Having a son or daughter with an intellectual disability transition to adulthood: A parental perspective', British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 49(1), pp. 39-51.
Elder, G. H. (1974) Children of the Great Depression; social change in life experience. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Elder, G. H. (1994) 'Time, Human Agency, and Social Change: Perspectives on the Life Course', Social Psychology Quarterly, 57(1), pp. 4-15.
Freeman, M., Stewart, D., Cunningham, C. E. and Gorter, J. W. (2018) '“If I had been given that information back then”: An interpretive description exploring the information needs of adults with cerebral palsy looking back on their transition to adulthood', Child: Care, Health and Development, 44(5), pp. 689-696.
Hatton, C. (2018) 'Paid employment amongst adults with learning disabilities receiving social care in England: trends over time and geographical variation', Tizard Learning Disability Review, 23(2), pp. 117-122.
Heslop, P., Mallett, R., Simons, K. and Ward, L. (2002) Bridging the divide at transition : what happens for young people with learning difficulties and their families? Kidderminster, UK: BILD Publications.
Hogan, D. P. and Astone, N. M. (1986) 'The Transition to Adulthood', Annual Review of Sociology, 12, pp. 109-130.
Leiter, V. (2012) Their Time Has Come : Youth with Disabilities on the Cusp of Adulthood. Piscataway, USA: Rutgers University Press.
Leonard, H., Foley, K.-R., Pikora, T., Bourke, J., Wong, K., McPherson, L., Lennox, N. and Downs, J. (2016) 'Transition to adulthood for young people with intellectual disability: the experiences of their families', European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 25(12), pp. 1369-1381.
Nuffield Trust (2023) Supporting people in employment - What proportion of people with a mental illness, learning disability or long-term condition are employed? Available at: https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/supporting-people-in-employment#:~:text=Here%20we%20look%20at%20the%20proportion%20of%20adults%20aged%2018,4.8%25%20in%202021%2F22. (Accessed: 27 May 2025).
Settersten, R. A., Furstenberg, F. F. and Rumbaut, R. n. G. (2005) On the frontier of adulthood : theory, research, and public policy Chicago: University of Chicago Press. John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation series on mental health and development. Available at: http://chicago.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.7208/chicago/9780226748924.001.0001/upso-9780226748894 (Accessed: 27 May 2025).
Tarlo, R., Rachel, F. and Roberts, S. (2024) 'Ambivalence about disability: Why people with mild learning difficulties who are looking for employment may not identify as disabled', Disability & Society, 39(3), pp. 548-570.
White, A., Sheehan, R., Ding, J., Roberts, C., Magill, N., Keagan-Bull, R., Carter, B., Chauhan, U., Tuffrey-Wijne, I. and Strydom, A. (2023) 'Learning from lives and deaths-people with a learning disability and autistic people (Leder) report for 2022', King's College London.