Becoming an Adult : Living Conditions and Attitudes among Swedish Youth

Sammanfattning: This thesis studies youth from different perspectives. These are the life phaseand the generational perspectives, which have been studied via questions of establishment and individualisation. The main question is whether young people are different because they have not made socially important transitions into adulthood or if they are different because they have grown up under different circumstances than earlier generations. The consequences of the outcome are important because they can indicate what kind of society young people will reproduce. The following conclusions are drawn: First, there are clear effects of social structurations (class of origin and gender) in the lives of young people. They affect the distribution of attitudes towards welfare state expenditures as well as the economic effects in a long-term perspective. Second, there is rather weak importance of role transitions in relation to what young people believe is important for adulthood, role transitions’ importance for the distribution of attitudes towards the welfare state as well as role transitions’ importance in a long-term perspective. Third, increasing age and subtle socialisation processes may be an explanation to the rather weak meaning of role transitions, cause adjustments to surrounding contexts and people’s expectations. It is concluded that the life phase perspective is a more accurate way of viewing young people, mainly because of the impact of social structurations, which are believed to contribute to continuous reproduction rather than complete change of society.