Looking at the transition of youth to adulthood from a life course perspective, this work
seeks to raise a few issues that may contribute to the Anthropology of Life Ages. This
attempt to better understand this specific life period was directed not only by events, such
as leaving the parental home, getting married or beginning professional life (which have
both diverse meanings for different individuals, as well as confront them with dilemmas of
different order), but also by the subjects’ expectations with respect to their trajectories and
their own views on them. Although the notion of transition seems pertinent to think about
these crucial moments in the lives of the young interviewees in our study, who feel them as
“crisis” or of being at a “crossroads”, our research data reveal that one’s entire life is
perceived as a transition such that change and new challenges are not the privilege of any
one age
