ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the question of the theoretical frame of the research and what existing studies can contribute to understanding the international differences in the insti nationalisation of two-generation households. Becoming an adult is a process during which a person has to climb different steps of a ladder to arrive at the top. The status of adulthood is reached after passing through a range of transitions which are connected with each other. The changes in family structures and life-courses which have occurred since the 1960s have been described by family sociologists as a pluralisation of family types and as an individualisation of biographies. These trends have spread from northern to southern Europe but without reaching a convergence, in the 1990s great differences in family structures and behaviour still persist between southern and northern Europe. The employment crisis which began in the mid 1970s affects the possibilities and forms by which young people enter labour market in European countries.
