Introduction Developmental psychologists and life-course criminologists have argued that the adoption of conventional adult roles is one of the main developmental tasks during the transition from adolescence to adulthood (e.g. Tanner, 2008, Moffitt, 2006). Examples of these conventional role transitions are not only finishing one's education, and becoming employed, the main subjects of this volume, but also to start living independently, forming a stable romantic relationship and becoming a parent. Adoption of these adult roles is argued to not only be related to well-being (Meeus, 1996, De Goede et a!., 1999), but also to criminal behaviour (Blokland and Nieuwbeerta, 2010, Siennick and Osgood, 2008). That is, criminological theories have argued that role transitions lead to changes in social control, routine activities, or self-image, which in turn lead to changes in criminal activity (Laub and Sampson, 2003, Warr, 2002, Giordano et al., 2002). Researchers have maintained that when studying the effect of role transitions, the transitions should not be investigated in isolation. Instead, an integrated approach is recommended, in which multiple role transitions are analysed simultaneously (Carlsson, 2012, Macmillan and Copher, 2005, Osgood et a!., 2005). Here we answer to this call and study employment and education within the total patterns of role transitions in a sample of emerging adults. Next we examine the extent to which these patterns are associated with crime.