Here's the Financial and Social Aspects of this Quarter-Life
Crisis, also from Wikipedia :
Financial and social aspects
A primary cause of the stress associated with the "quarter-life
crisis" is financial in nature. Real wages for most people have been dropping
since the 1970s, and most professions have become highly
competitive. Positions of relative security, such as tenured
positions at universities and "partner" status at law firms, have
dwindled in number. This, combined with excessive downsizing, means
that many Americans will never experience occupational security in
their lives, and this is doubly unlikely in young adulthood.
Generation X was the first generation to meet this uncertain "New
Economy" en masse.
The era when a professional
career meant a life of occupational security, thus allowing an
individual to proceed to establish an "inner life", is coming to a
crashing end. Financial professionals are often expected to
spend upwards of 80 hours per week in the office, and people in the
legal, medical, educational, and managerial professions may average
more than 60. In most cases, these long hours are de facto involuntary,
reflecting economic and social insecurity. While these ills plague
adults at all ages, their worst victims are ambitious,
unestablished young adults.
In The Cheating Culture, David Callahan illustrates that
these ills of excessive
competition and insecurity do not always end once one becomes
established, by being awarded tenure or "partner" status, and
therefore the "quarter-life crisis" may actually extend beyond
young adulthood. Some measure of financial security, which
usually requires occupational security, is necessary for
psychological development. Some
have theorized that insecurity in the "New Economy" will place many
Americans in a state of, effectively, perpetual adolescence, and
that the rampant and competitive consumerism of the 1990s and 2000s
indicates that this is already taking
place.
Really food for thought...
It's true that these days, the younger folks graduate into a pretty
'unfriendly' working environment - in the job market, it's the
employers' market these days. 
Terms of
employment, remuneration and benefits aren't what they used to be,
and on top of that, permanent employment can be pretty difficult to
get, leaving most job-seekers with contract or temporary positions,
which does not offer any job security at all.
No wonder greater and greater numbers experience a sort of 'burn
out' in their jobs much faster and end up with the Quarter-Life
Crisis! 
