Transitions to adulthood

The paper focuses on the variations over birth cohorts and across EU countries of patterns of taking on adult roles. First, it analyses, the ages at which individuals: i) complete full-time schooling; ii) find their first job; iii) form a stable cohabiting union; and iv) become parent. Second, it studies the whole sequences of these four steps towards adulthood. The paper tries: a) to falsify the hypothesis that in contemporary EU countries – as well as in all the advanced societies – the pathways to adulthood are becoming increasingly individualised , and b) to confirm the alternative hypothesis that in these societies the sequence of steps towards adulthood still follows collectively structured patterns, even though the specific ages at which adult roles are taken on do vary over time and across countries according to both individuals’ social characteristics and cultural features, institutional arrangements and economic situation of the society they belong to. To test the above hypotheses, data coming from waves 1994 to 1998 of ECHP and regarding people born between 1909 and 1983 in 14 EU countries are studied. Analyses are carried using three different statistical techniques. First, Kaplan-Mayer procedure to estimate the median age at which young people attained their highest educational qualification, entered their first job, entered their first marriage (or consensual union), had their first child. Second, discrete time multilevel hazard models with random baseline to account for the effects of time, country, and a set of individual characteristics on the probabilities of: a) entering the first job; b) forming the first marriage; and c) having the first child. Third, optimal matching procedure of sequence analysis to give an holistic account of both sequence and duration of events leading to adult condition. The main results of analyses can be summarized as follows. Contrary to the prediction of the individualisation thesis, holistic analysis has not shown that the level of heterogeneity of both sequence and duration of events leading to adulthood increases moving from southern to northern EU countries. Event history analysis has shown that in these countries, social clocks and widely shared rules governing the chronological order of steps towards adulthood still exist. Moreover, there is no evidence of steady trends in ages of transition to adulthood throughout the XX century in the EU. Only ages on leaving school and first job entrance display a linear increase over time, while ages at first marriage and birth of the first child have changed following a U-shaped trend across cohorts in all EU countries. Despite these similarities, marked differences exist among EU countries. People from southern countries display the slowest and the most delayed transitions to adulthood, while those living in the Nordic countries and the UK exhibit the most rapid one. This regularity clearly represent the cumulative effect of the economic, institutional and cultural constraints and opportunities existing in the different EU societies.