Abstract # 4

Klijzing, Erik. Transitions to adulthood in Europe: from a matter of standard to a matter of choice (edited together with Martine Corijn). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (forthcoming).

In this edited volume, results are presented of a comparative study of the transition to adulthood in 10 different countries: Austria, Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Spain. Country-specific analyses are mostly based on the Fertility and Family Surveys (FFS). They examine in detail the departure from the parental home, first union formation (marital as well as non-marital), and first parenthood. A special feature of the book is that leaving the educational system and entering the labor market were modeled as inter-dependent processes. The book provides important initial insights into the similarities and differences in institutional settings within countries, and how these impact on the transition to adulthood in a globalizing world. Although all these country-specific details are too numerous to list here, the country-specific studies clearly demonstrated the great divide between the Southern and Northern European welfare regimes in their various institutional characteristics; and how these affect the transition from youth to adulthood differentially. For instance, the rather rigid labor market entry conditions and close family ties in Southern Europe have a tendency to delay the departure from the parental home, with obvious consequences for subsequent family formation. On the other hand, relatively generous welfare state provisions in Northern welfare states make it possible to leave the parental home much earlier, and speed up the process of first union formation and even childbearing out-of-wedlock. Thus, over time the transition to adulthood in Scandinavian states seems to have changed much more from a matter of standard to a matter of choice than in Southern Europe, where non-marital cohabitation and childbearing even today are still rare. This study clearly shows that uncertainty created by globalization affects the transition differently in various contexts.