Do Transitions and Social Structures Matter? How ‘Emerging Adults’ Define Themselves as Adults

Abstract

Recently, theories and research in the new field of ‘emerging adulthood’ have indicated that young people may currently view adulthood based on individualistic criteria and not according to the passing of one or another of the transitions many sociologists use to frame the analysis of youth. Based on qualitative interviews conducted with 25–29 year olds in the province of Québec, Canada, this article analyses how self-conceptions of adulthood are constructed. Findings show that, contrary to the results from the field of ‘emerging adulthood’, the young adults who were interviewed refer to adulthood in terms of both individual qualities and transition markers. Then, by placing the interplay between these two dimensions into a larger socio-economic context, the article argues that attention needs be paid to transitions and changing social structures in research on youth biographies.

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