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This article reviews the similarities and differences in the transition to adulthood in Europe. Recent change and the still striking diversity in pathways to adulthood in Europe have attracted growing comparative research interests. The considerable heterogeneity in institutional arrangements, cultural heritage, and economic life observed across contemporary European societies provides fertile ground for testing hypotheses of various macro-level theories and approaches addressing interactions between micro- and macro-level factors. Pursuing a comparative perspective, this review frames the transition to adulthood within a life course perspective. After having mapped the terrain of recent change and contemporary diversity in the transition to adulthood in Europe, the review presents the theoretical perspectives predominantly used to explain diversity and discusses whether die empirical evidence squares with the theoretical propositions. The review concludes by suggesting how future research could advance understanding of the complex nature of the transition to adulthood in Europe.

Previous research has shown that the transition to parenthood is a critical lifecourse stage. Using data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey and fixed-effects panel regression models, we investigate changes in men's and women's attitudes to mothering and gender divisions of labor following the transition to parenthood. Key findings indicate that attitudes become more traditional after individuals experience the birth of their first child, with both men and women becoming more likely to support mothering as women's most important role in life. We argue that these changes are due to both changes in identity and cognitive beliefs associated with the experience of becoming a parent, as well as institutional arrangements that support traditional gender divisions. More broadly, our results can be taken as strong evidence that attitudes are not stable over the life course and change with the experience of life events.

Despite underlying regularities in the age profile of migration, there is mounting evidence of cross-national variations in the ages at which migration occurs. Explanations for these differences have variously been sought by reference to cultural, social, and economic factors, and through analysis of reasons for moving. There is also a growing body of work linking migration events to particular transitions in the life course. We set out a conceptual framework that links contextual factors to the age structure of migration through life-course transitions that act as proximate determinants of the age at migration. We propose metrics to capture the prevalence, timing, and spread of four key life-course transitions: education completion, labor force entry, union formation, and first childbearing. We then seek to quantitatively establish the link between these indicators and the age and intensity of internal migration at its peak for a global sample of 27 countries. Correlation and factor analysis reveal substantial diversity in the timing and spread of transitions to adult roles, and show that cross-national differences in the age profile of migration closely parallel variations in the age structure of the life course for over two-thirds of countries. Migration age profiles are aligned with transitions to adulthood for both sexes but most strongly among women.

This article examines the transition to adulthood among 1.5-generation undocumented Latino young adults. For them, the transition to adulthood involves exiting the legally protected status of K to 12 students and entering into adult roles that require legal status as the basis for participation. This collision among contexts makes for a turbulent transition and has profound implications for identity formation, friendship patterns, aspirations and expectations, and social and economic mobility. Undocumented children move from protected to unprotected, from inclusion to exclusion, from de facto legal to illegal. In the process, they must learn to be illegal, a transformation that involves the almost complete retooling of daily routines, survival skills, aspirations, and social patterns. These findings have important implications for studies of the 1.5- and second-generations and the specific and complex ways in which legal status intervenes in their coming of age. The article draws on 150 interviews with undocumented 1.5-generation young adult Latinos in Southern California.

Life courses are studied in sociology and neighboring fields as developmental processes, as culturally and normatively constructed life stages and age roles, as biographical meanings, as aging processes, as outcomes of institutional regulation and policies, as demographic accounts, or as mere empirical connectivity across the life course. This review has two aims. One is to report on trends in life course research by focusing on empirical studies published since the year 2000. The other is to assess the overall development of the field. Major advances can be observed in four areas: national individual-level longitudinal databases, the impact of institutional contexts on life courses, life four under conditions of societal ruptures, and health across the life course. In four other areas, advancements have been less pronounced: internal dynamics and causal linkages across life, the interaction of development and socially constructed life courses, theory development, and new methods. Overall, life course sociology still has far to go to reach its full potential.

PhD students’ poor mental health has been increasingly concerning. However, challenges among PhD students studying aboard are understudied. The Educational and Life Transitions (ELT) model postulates that international PhD students are subject to both academic and acculturative stressors; however, relevant research is limited in the Chinese context. We examined mainland Chinese PhD students’ study and living experiences in Hong Kong using a qualitative approach. Through purposive sampling, 37 mainland Chinese PhD students in different disciplines from public-funded universities in Hong Kong were recruited to participate in online focus group interviews (December 2020–February 2021). The interviews were analyzed using the framework analysis method. Ten themes of academic/acculturative stressors were identified. The academic stressors included: (1) high expectations from the supervisors; (2) emphasis on self-discipline as PhD students; (3) peer comparison in academia; (4) difficulties shifting research directions/academic disciplines; (5) uncertainties about future career. The acculturative stressors included: (1) differences in the political environment; (2) language barriers; (3) difficulties living in Hong Kong; (4) limited social interaction with others; (5) local people’s discriminatory behaviors. This study sheds light on the stressors experienced by mainland Chinese PhD students in Hong Kong. To better address those students’ academic and acculturative stressors, cross-cultural training and additional support from supervisors/the university could be provided.

We examine the relationships between objective life-course structures and the subjective sense of timing of adult roles and acquisition of adult identity. Hierarchical latent class analysis is applied to longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study in order to describe roles related to school, work family formation, and living arrangements from age 17 to 30. The transition to adulthood in this cohort is well represented by five pathways probabilistically mapping the timing and sequencing of these roles and their configurations. Three pathways are characterized by a school-to-work transition with on-time, delayed, or negligible family formation. The two remaining pathways involve early parenthood with either a partner and stable full-time work or the lack of a partner and little labor-force attachment. We then show that the subjective sense of timing with respect to certain adult roles and adult identity acquisition is empirically tied to these life-course structures.

Young adults commonly exit from and return to the parental home, yet few studies have examined the motivation behind these exits and returns using a life course framework. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, the authors examined associations between mental health problems and economic characteristics and exits from (n = 8,162) and returns to (n = 6,530) the parental home during the transition to adulthood. The average age of the respondents was 24 years. The authors found evidence that mental health and economic characteristics were related to home leaving and returning. Emotional distress was associated with earlier exits from and returns to the parental home; alcohol problems were associated with earlier returns to the parental home. The findings regarding economic resources were unexpectedly mixed. Greater economic resources were linked to delayed exits from and earlier returns to the parental home. The implications of these findings for young adults are discussed.

Using longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study (analytic sample N = 712), we investigate how age, adult role acquisition and attainments, family resources, parent—child relationship quality, school attendance, and life events influence support received from parents in young adulthood. Parental assistance was found to be less forthcoming for those who had made greater progress on the road to adulthood, signified by socioeconomic attainment and union formation. The quality of mother—child and father—child relationships affected parental support in different ways, positively for mothers, negatively for fathers. School enrollment, negative life events, and employment problems were associated with a greater likelihood of receiving support. The findings suggest that parents act as \"scaffolding' and \"safety nets\" to aid their children's successful transition to adulthood.

Past research in both the transitions to adulthood literature and cultural sociology more broadly suggests that the working class relies on traditional cultural models in their construction of identity. In the contemporary post-industrial world, however, traditional life pathways are now much less available to working-class men and women. I draw on 93 interviews with black and white working-class young people in their 20s to 30s and ask, in an era of increasing uncertainty, where traditional markers of adulthood have become tenuous, what kinds of cultural models do working-class young people employ to validate their adult identities? In contrast to previous studies of working-class identity, I found that respondents embraced a model of therapeutic selfhood—that is, an inwardly directed self preoccupied with its own psychic development. I demonstrate that the therapeutic narrative allows working-class men and women to redefine competent adulthood in terms of overcoming a painful family past. Respondents required a witness to validate their performances of adulthood, however, and the inability to find one left many lost in transition.