Do Transitions to Adulthood Converge in Europe? An Optimal Matching Analysis of Work-Family Trajectories of Men and Women from 20 European Countries.

Summary This paper addresses the question of the convergence of transitions to adulthood in 20 European countries using data from the third round of the European Social Survey (2006). Pathways are derived from five events – employment, leaving-home, union formation, marriage and childbearing – retrospectively observed for men and women over 35 years old (N = 26,351), over four birth cohorts and described with optimal matching and cluster analyses. Using correspondence analysis, we find a convergence between male and female patterns in the passage to adulthood in Northern and Western Europe. Despite some convergence, the transition to adulthood in European countries remains marked by their historical family systems.