Hopes and fears in the Future Orientation of Emerging Adults: Implications for dependable and productive adult futures in Cameroon

Abstract

Emerging adulthood is a time of transition when young people actively work to define themselves and their future roles in preparation for full adult status. It is a time of making critical life decisions to shape the course of their adult lives either in education, career and life-style. Albeit these, those raised in impoverished environments as those in most of Africa, are at substantial risk of making poor life decisions because among others, they are often exposed to difficult life circumstances. Navigating future life courses becomes an arduous task accompanied by very difficult conditions, leaving most emerging adults hopeless about the future of their lives. As such, their future orientations appear quite uncertain, contestable and mixed between hopes and fears; and pathways marked by a litany of challenges. This article presents data on hopes and fears in the future orientation of emerging adults, collected with the Hopes and Fears Questionnaire among 137 final year undergraduates, aged 18-26 in Cameroon. Descriptive analyses show twin orientations towards future identities: hopes and fears as well as education, work and family as key routes to adulthood. While a significant proportion hope for, among others, work and career development (75.9%), marriage and family formation (56%), and schooling or continuing education (38.7%); they also fear not continuing their education because of no funding (67&), loosing sponsorship, becoming unemployed and poor (52.6%), not getting married and having children of their own (40%), and so on. Meanwhile 85.4% feel that education, work and marriage are dependable pathways to hopeful and productive futures. These findings showed that the tendency to think about the future is well developed among Cameroon emerging adults; and like in most of the literature, their images of the future are caught between hopes and fears. Comparatively however, the Cameroon data suggest that pessimistic visions of the future of adulthood are more developed and expansive than optimistic futures where respondents are more skeptical about their futures. This may be true given the harsh realities of growing up in Cameroon today. Like in previous studies the road to adulthood is socially constructed and institutionalised with pathways delineated by completing school, leaving home, beginning one's career, marrying, and becoming a parent. This is acceptable data in Cameroon given its “still strongly acclaimed” sociological and demographic definitions of adulthood.

Keywords: Hopes. Fears, Future orientation, Emerging adults, Dependable futures, Productive futures

DOI: 10.7176/DCS/11-7-07

Publication date:September 30^th 2021