In this chapter we review the evidence from a three-country study assessing the impact of the 2008 Great Recession on young people making the step into independent adulthood, comparing experiences in the UK, in Germany, and the USA. Drawing on evidence from large scale, longitudinal studies the experiences of young people coming of age in different cultural contexts are described. The findings suggest that the Great Recession was a significant, but not principal influence on young people’s changing life course post-2008. Better to characterize it as a major economic shock that intensified the impact of pre-existing economic and social processes on young people’s lives.

Nonetheless, the recession effects presented new obstacles to entering and sustaining employment within the adult labor market. In particular the increasing precaritization of employment and marginalization of growing sections of the youth population, including graduates, is a major concern.

In this chapter, we argue that the timing of societal events in an individual’s life plays a major role in shaping that life through interacting developmental processes at multiple levels. We focus on classic research by Elder showing how two such events in historical proximity dramatically altered the lives of California children who were born at opposite ends of the 1920s, 1920–21 and 1928–29, the Great Depression of the 1930s followed by World War II (1941–45) and the Korean War (1950–53). We employ insights from both Elder’s cohort historical life course approach and developmental science including recent work on developmental neuroscience to understand the life-long impact of exposure to events that occur at different times in life, and the mechanisms through which these exposures may influence development, as well as experiences that may provide turning points in development.