This research examines the trajectories that young men and women in Mexico
experienced during their transition to adulthood in the 1980s and 1990s. The study,
particularly, considers two groups of significant markers of adulthood: social
transitions (leaving education, entry into the labour force, parental home leaving), and
family formation transitions (first sex, first partnership, and first birth). The thesis
investigates the ways that these transitions were experienced among Mexican youth:
first, by establishing the main interactions between social transitions and family
formation transitions to adulthood; and second, by providing evidence of the main
trajectories followed by young men and women in their passage to adulthood from a
life course perspective.
Applying Event History techniques to retrospective data from the 2000
Mexican National Youth Survey, results show that young men and women
experienced different patterns of trajectories in their transit to adulthood marked by a
strong gender component. While young men showed a lag between the experience of
social and family formation transitions characterized by work-oriented trajectories,
young women often experienced almost simultaneous occurrence of social and family
formation transitions leading to predominantly family-oriented trajectories to
adulthood. Differences between urban and rural respondents were also found to be
significant.
Another conclusion of the study is that many young people found great
difficulty in obtaining their first job after leaving education, leading to high
unemployment. Despite the lack of employment opportunities for Mexican young
people, family formation transitions were not substantially postponed until later ages
unlike many developed nations. The findings also confirm the importance of
education on the experience of transitions to adulthood. The study shows the need to
restructure the Mexican educational system to enable young people to work and study
simultaneously, without having to leave education immediately after entering the
labour force. These findings highlight the need to strengthen and reinforce current
education policies to stimulate labour force participation of young women
