The short answer
Yes, and unusually consistently so. Foundational research on age norms found the large majority of people share a surprisingly narrow internalized sense of the "right" age for milestones like marriage, career stability, and parenthood — which means feeling behind, when your own timeline departs from that shared schedule, is one of the most common and well-documented life-stage experiences, not a sign something is uniquely wrong with you.
The research
In foundational research on age norms, the large majority of respondents agreed within a narrow age range on the socially 'ideal' timing for marriage, parenthood, and career milestones — a level of shared consensus that helps explain why feeling behind that internalized schedule is such a widespread, well-documented experience rather than an unusual one.
— Neugarten, B.L., American Journal of Psychiatry, 1979
Why it feels so personal despite being so common
You only ever experience your own version of this feeling from the inside, while everyone around you appears to be handling their timeline just fine on the outside — which makes an extremely common experience feel like a private, unusual failure. The same research that identified the shared timetable also found that people experiencing milestones "off-time" reported real psychological distress, meaning the feeling isn't an overreaction to a made-up standard — it's a documented response to a real, if largely unconscious, cultural expectation.
Why certain peers trigger it more than others
The feeling tends to concentrate around peers who are similar to you in ways that make the comparison feel directly relevant — same age, same starting point, same general path — rather than people who are simply older or more accomplished in an unrelated way. This matches the broader pattern in comparison research: people compare themselves most intensely to others they perceive as similar, not to the most extreme example available.
When it's worth more than reassurance
The frequency and universality of this feeling don't mean every instance deserves the same response. It's worth paying closer attention — potentially with a professional — if the feeling is constant rather than occasional, is accompanied by other symptoms of depression or anxiety, or is meaningfully affecting your ability to function day to day, rather than surfacing periodically the way this experience typically does.