Enormous changes have taken places in the adult life cycle. Young people are waiting until their 30s to marry and start families, men and women in their 40s and 50s feel ten years younger, more women are having children in their 40s or over, 50-year-old men are increasingly being forced into early retirement, and healthy men and women who reach 50 can expect to see their 80th or 90th birthdays - which means they have a "Second Adulthood" to think about and plan. This book addresses the new dilemmas and demands people of each generation face as they pass beyond middle age. It dramatizes the radical changes in all phases of adult life through personal histories and group interviews, attitudinal surveys of professional and working-class people, and findings extracted from 50 years of US Census reports. This edition draws on in-depth British research from MORI and Demos, interviews with British men and women, and analysis from commentators, incuding Anthony Sampson and Hamish McRae. This book forms the sequel to Sheehy's previous book "Passages".