Jennifer M. Silva Books
Jennifer M. Silva is an American sociologist and author whose research focuses on inequality, class, and the changing meaning of adulthood in contemporary society.
Known for: Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
Books by Jennifer M. Silva
Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
What happens when the traditional roadmap to adulthood no longer works, yet people are still told their future depends entirely on personal effort? In Coming Up Short, sociologist Jennifer M. Silva examines that question through vivid interviews with working-class young adults trying to build lives under conditions of deep economic instability. Rather than treating delayed marriage, unstable employment, strained family ties, or emotional hardship as personal failures, Silva shows how they reflect broader transformations in American society. The secure jobs, reliable institutions, and clear milestones that once organized adulthood have weakened, leaving many young people to improvise identity and purpose on their own. What makes this book especially powerful is Silva’s ability to connect intimate personal stories to structural inequality. Her interviewees are not abstractions; they are young men and women wrestling with debt, precarious work, mistrust, loneliness, and the pressure to become “strong” through struggle. As a sociologist focused on class, inequality, and adulthood, Silva brings both scholarly rigor and empathy to these experiences. The result is a compelling portrait of how economic uncertainty reshapes love, work, morality, and the meaning of growing up in contemporary America.
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Listening Closely to Working-Class Lives
The most revealing truths about social change often appear not in statistics first, but in people’s stories. At the heart of Coming Up Short is Jennifer M. Silva’s qualitative research with working-class young adults, whose lives illuminate what it feels like to come of age in a period of uncertaint...
From Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
A Lost Inheritance of Stability
One of the book’s most striking insights is that today’s uncertainty becomes visible only when set against the relative stability of the recent past. Silva situates her interviewees within a historical shift: many of their parents and grandparents could expect more predictable transitions into adult...
From Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
Adulthood Without Clear Milestones
Adulthood becomes difficult to claim when the markers that once signaled it are no longer attainable or no longer trusted. Silva shows that working-class young adults do not simply postpone adulthood; they redefine it. Since stable employment, marriage, and homeownership often feel out of reach, man...
From Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
Gender Shapes Pain and Possibility
Economic insecurity may be widespread, but it is never experienced in a gender-neutral way. Silva demonstrates that young men and women often narrate hardship through distinct emotional and moral frameworks shaped by cultural expectations. Men frequently wrestle with the fading ideal of the breadwin...
From Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
Work No Longer Guarantees Identity
Work is supposed to provide more than income; it is also expected to offer dignity, routine, and a sense of who one is. Silva shows that for many working-class young adults, this promise has broken down. Employment is often temporary, low-paid, unpredictable, or emotionally draining. Instead of buil...
From Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
Love Becomes Risky Under Insecurity
Intimacy changes when trust, stability, and future planning become scarce. In Silva’s account, relationships are not simply delayed because young adults are selfish or commitment-averse. Instead, many approach love cautiously because their broader world has taught them that dependence is dangerous. ...
From Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
About Jennifer M. Silva
Jennifer M. Silva is an American sociologist and author whose research focuses on inequality, class, and the changing meaning of adulthood in contemporary society. She has taught at Bucknell University and other institutions, contributing widely to discussions on social mobility and identity.
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Jennifer M. Silva is an American sociologist and author whose research focuses on inequality, class, and the changing meaning of adulthood in contemporary society.
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