"Study Reveals Most People Don't Feel Like an Adult Until the Age of 29"

"Fly Research conducted the study to discover what variables people associated with adulthood,  reports the Independent. The No. 1 reason for feeling like an adult is home ownership, while the biggest reason for still feeling like an adolescent is financial reliance on parents.

"More adults than ever before are leaving it later in life to move out from the parental home, get married or have children," Frank Furedi, a sociologist from the University of Kent, said in a Beagle Street press release sent to Mic. "This is having a knock-on effect to how old and 'grown up' people actually perceive themselves to be, which suggests that the old adage of age being but a number is factually true."...

"Growing up is less about years and more about reaching milestones," Gledhill said. "With each of these life events there is a need to take responsibility and a need to become an adult as you have people depending on you to do so.""

http://m.mic.com/articles/124772/study-reveals-most-people-don-t-feel-like-an-adult-until-the-age-of-29

And maybe a certain amount of permanence? Like, living in a city and thinking that this is where you LIVE.

And these milestones are also very class-based and heteronormative, and describe situations that not everyone is going to have access to if it isn't easy for them to find fields or communities that are inclusive of them. And I feel like adult also means "real human" in a way, where you have achieved that status.

(credit to DK)