Transition to Adulthood in Spain: a Temporal and Territorial Comparison Using Entropy Analysis

Abstract

The aim of this research is to examine changes in
the transition to adulthood in Spain during the last
two decades of the 20th century. The three most
important dimensions of this phenomenon are: 1) the
transition from the education system to the labour
market (entry into the labour market); 2) the process
of leaving the parental home to settle in an
independent household (leaving home); and 3) the
change in family status from being a «child» to a
«parent» (family formation). The study is based on
the 1981 and 2001 Censuses collected by IPUMSInternational
(Integrated Public Use of Microdata Series) at the Minnesota Population Center of the
University of Minnesota. The method used is the
«entropy analysis of status combinations», which
offers a synthetic indicator of the transition to
adulthood, together with two other indicators:
«transition spread» and «age congruity». The results
show a great concentration on the transition within a
specific age range, and a six-year delay in the
transition to adulthood between 1981 and 2001. We
conclude that the life course became far more
complex during this period, particularly for women.
We also observe a territorial convergence in the
patterns of transition, as the examples of Catalonia
and Galicia prove. Despite our data limitations, this method has proven to be superior to traditionally
applied techniques due to its ability to collapse
different life course dimensions into a unique crosssectional
indicator.