From the 1960s onwards, young people’s path towards adulthood in Europe has become increasingly long and complex. Because ‘becoming adults’ is a vague and rather subjective notion, it is common to conceptualize the transition to adulthood as a process that includes the following events: completing education, entering the labour market, leaving the parental home, forming a union, and having a child. Compared to the previous generations, these events tend to be experienced at later ages. Nevertheless, we have an incomplete understanding of how gender and socio-economic differences are related to the timing of single events, across various European countries.
Using data from the European Social Survey timing of life module (2006, 2018), a study from Valeria Ferraretto and Agnese Vitali (University of Trento, Italy) compares the age at which individuals born in the 1950s-1990s in 31 European countries experienced the following events: leaving the parental home for the first time, entering the labour market, forming the first co-residential union, and having the first child. The authors consider the role played by gender differences and by parental education.
Findings reveal that, across successive birth cohorts, all events of the transition to adulthood have been postponed, except for leaving home in Northern Europe. Parenthood is the event that has been postponed to the greatest extent: among people born in the 1980s, the probability of not being a parent by age 35 is 44% among men and 26% among women (all over Europe). People born in the 1960s were half as likely to remain childless by age 35. Also, a considerable proportion of individuals born in the 1980s has not entered their first co-residential union by age 35: 19% among men and 12% among women.
Across all country groups, individuals with tertiary-educated parents experience labour market entry, union formation, and parenthood later than individuals with lower-educated parents. No homogenous pattern is observed for the event of leaving home. Women experience events earlier than men, also among individuals born in the 1980s and 1990s; the only event which is experienced later by women is labour market entry. However, gender differences in the age at events are substantially reduced among the offspring of tertiary-educated parents. While the sons and daughters of highly educated parents delay family-related events, presumably until they reach a stable position in the labour market, young adults born in families with low socioeconomic backgrounds experience events earlier.
Thus, the transition to adulthood has been considerably postponed, although not homogeneously across events and population subgroups: taking these differences into account, together with their geographical variation, is fundamental to target social policies (i.e., housing or family policies) on the right age range.