ABSTRACT
The process of transition to adult life is deeply connected with the structural conditions that set the frame of opportunities for young people to negotiate their pathways towards adulthood. The literature has widely supported that, in postmodern societies, changes in demographic patterns, educational pathways, professional profiles and family life have led to a protracted youth condition (Arnett, 2000, 2006; Côté, 2002; Pais, 2001). The concept of emerging adulthood, coined by Arnett (2000, 2006, 2007), takes into account the new challenges and main features of the period between adolescence and adulthood in late modern globalized societies. Given the relevance of the concept of emerging adulthood for the research on the new meanings of youth and adulthood, we phrase our discourse in line with the critiques placed by Bynner (2005), Côté (2006), Hendry and Kloep (2007) and Côté and Bynner (2008). The term “emerging adulthood” can be seen, then, as a comprehensive concept that reflects the modifications in the subjective experience of becoming an adult. These are related to the high sense of risk, uncertainty and anomie that stems from the profound economic and sociocultural changes of the last decades.
