Divergents Paths to Adulthood in Mexico

Silvia Giorguli-Saucedo, El Colegio de México

The socioeconomic changes that Mexico experienced before the turn of the century altered the context in which young people transitioned to adulthood. To understand the effects of these socioeconomic changes and the particular institutional settings, the paper explores how Mexican adolescents born between 1976 and 1988 experienced five transitions: leaving school, entering the labor force, leaving the parental home, starting a union and becoming a parent. The paper attempts to advance this field by studying several transitions together and linking them with the particular demographic conditions, social context and institutional arrangements. The results showed that the persistent social inequality in Mexico resulted in two distinct transition patterns to adulthood—one applying to the great majority and the other to a small elite group. Social institutions had a very weak influence on the timing of the transitions in the productive sphere and family resources influenced the transitions in the reproductive sphere.