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    Plan détaillé Texte intégral 1. The Founding Event: Examples from France 2. Neither Teenagers Nor Adults: The Fuzzy In-Between Status of Young Urban Africans Conclusion Bibliographie Notes de bas de page Auteurs

    Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories

    Ce livre est recensé par

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    Table des matières

    CHAPTER 5

    Transition to Adulthood: Rethinking the Definition and Analysis of First-Time Events

    Anne E. Calvès, Michel Bozon, Alioune Diagne et Mathias Kuépié

    Texte intégral Bibliographie Notes de bas de page Auteurs

    Texte intégral

    1Youth is an ambiguous, relative concept. Users of life course surveys have often addressed it from the standpoint of the transition to adulthood. They have looked at the social markers that punctuate young people’s residential, family and occupational histories: leaving school or college, first job, residential independence, first marriage, first childbirth. It is the timing and order of these “first-time” events that life course studies of the passage to adulthood have focused on. In France, as elsewhere in Europe, the results reveal the profound changes in young people’s passage to adulthood that have taken place in the past thirty years.

    2Traditionally, girls’ access to adult status followed a different model to boys’. They married and had children earlier and the work stage was less important (Galland, 2001). Now, with the general increase in women’s workforce participation, fewer girls consider their passage to adulthood strictly in terms of the start of their life as a wife and mother (Blöss, Frickey and Novi, 1994). For boys and girls alike, the transition period between adolescence and adulthood now lasts longer, both because education lasts longer and because it is increasingly hard to find a stable job. The educational, family and occupational trajectories of both men and women have diversified too, and families are formed later and later (Économie et statistique, 2000). However, the contrast between the South European model of prolonged cohabitation with parents and the Northern model of relatively early residential independence persists (Corijn and Klijzing, 2001). Youth is increasingly a period of latency, punctuated with partial or reversible “first-time” events that do not necessarily mark a formal passage or a change of status (Bozon, 2002a).

    3Although youth as a specific phase in the life cycle and general quantitative analysis of this phase have emerged more recently in sub-Saharan Africa, there too young people’s life situations are increasingly diverse and the classic markers and model of entry into adult life do not seem adequate for understanding them. With the great social and cultural changes that have taken place since decolonization and, more recently, the enduring economic crisis, young people’s life courses are becoming more complex, just as they are in the industrialized countries (Calvès et al., 2006; Antoine et al., 2001; Hertrich, 2007). As in Europe, the importance of first-time events and the age at which they occur vary by gender. Girls or young women form couples and start families earlier than men (Hertrich and Locoh, 1999; Kuépié, 2002). In African cities, although women are quite widely involved in the labour market, especially in trade, a girl’s passage to adulthood is associated more with her entry into marriage and motherhood than into paid work. “This is why, for women, the (closely connected) statuses of wife and mother have traditionally been the most highly valued” (CEPED, 1992, p. 21). However, for both sexes, the passage to adulthood has ceased to be a predetermined, synchronized transition, and a growing number of young people, in the cities especially, find themselves in fuzzy transitory states which seem to defy analysis.

    4This situation calls for theoretical and practical examination of data collection and analysis methods concerning the first-time events that play a part in the passage to adulthood, for boys and girls, in Europe and in Africa.

    1. The Founding Event: Examples from France

    5Research on the passage to adulthood and the period we call “youth”, in France and in industrialized countries more generally, reveals that an increasing number of first-time events play their part in the process. “The period of youth is no longer marked by rites of passage, but is punctuated by a whole series of rites of narrower scope, often fairly informal, some connected with social temporality (e.g. rights that are obtained on reaching a particular age laid down by law). With the increase in the number of such rites, seen more as first-time events or symbolic moments than as marks of passage, the social attributes of maturity are acquired piecemeal, in an infinitely fragmented way, spread over time as an accumulation of isolated experiences” (Bozon, 2002a). These rites and moments raise problems for analysis because they are of such widely differing kinds. If respondents are questioned on their subjective experience, they describe some of them as important. But although they are all first-time experiences that attract demographers’ attention, they do not necessarily bring the individual into a significant new period of their life or give access to a new status.

    1.1. “Coupling”, or How to Analyse First-Time Events

    6One way to analyses and interpret these experiences, along the lines of the work of Christine Tichit and Eva Lelièvre on the Biographies et entourage survey (Tichit and Lelièvre, 2006) the accumulation and effervescence of events that create meaning and define special moments or even turning-points in a life (de Coninck and Godard, 1990). One can describe constellations of events that are close in time but belong to different spheres, such as the first time an individual goes on a demonstration, goes on holiday without their parents or moves into a place of their own, the start of their first term at university, the day they smoke their first joint, the first break-up of a romantic liaison (imaginary examples). The object described is a complex of events. The period of youth is studded with such constellations. Take the example of the events around the age of majority: they involve far more than the acquisition of legal rights.

    7To take account of objective and experiential processes in people’s lives, we suggest a second reading of these stages, based on the hypothesis that first-time events in young people’s event histories function in pairs. An event may hold a potential, but may reveal its meaning only when coupled with or linked to a later event in the same sphere, which consolidates and confirms it. Without this interpretative framework, which is a form of anticipation, neither actors nor analysts would be able to find their way among the events experienced or observed. They would be unable to give them any meaning. The same reasoning would apply to series of more than two events leading to realization of the potential of the initial event.

    8There is no single theoretical type of coupling between events. Possible forms of association include links between a theoretical threshold and a practical one, the opening of a possibility and its concretization, the exit from one state and entry into another, or the entry into a new state and the consolidating event. Combining quantitative and qualitative data, event coupling theory can be used to examine the duration and content of the actualization and stabilization stages. It may be posited that these vary according to generation, gender and social group (Battagliola, 2001; Thomsin, Le Goff and Sauvain-Dugerdil, 2004) and country (Corijn and Klijzing, 2001). The fact that first-time events are not always followed by consolidating events can be interpreted as a distinctive trait of some particular trajectories, for example some insecure or unstable ones (Galland, 1984). In this type of analysis the choice of the consolidating event may be of significance, for the person concerned and for the observer. Nor is it always self-evident, as can be seen from the examples below: independent transport, sexual initiation and starting a career.

    1.2. Becoming Independent for Transport, in Theory and Practice

    9One event that has become extremely important for young people in Europe is passing the driving test (Bozon and Villeneuve-Gokalp, 1994; Masclet, 2002). This may happen around the time people obtain their A-levels/baccalaureat and reach their majority. Once a young person no longer has to rely on parents, friends or public transport to travel around, they can make their own plans to go out, travel, take a holiday or work further from home. In late adolescence, whether a youngster wants to leave home or wants more independence while still living with their parents, they need to be able to travel on their own. For all these purposes, the driving license has acquired great symbolic importance, for boys particularly. Passing one’s driving test is a landmark in the passage from adolescence to youth. Boys pass theirs earlier than do girls, whose movements and outings are under closer parental control (Bozon and Villeneuve-Gokalp, 1994). In the end, however, as many women as men possess driving licenses. The children of farmers and managers obtain theirs earlier than most youngsters.

    10The consolidating event in the process of becoming an independent traveller is clear. Passing one’s driving test is a theoretical and symbolic stage, but the right to drive only becomes a practical reality once a person has the use of a vehicle. With regard to this practical threshold, social divisions are shifting; the children of farmers and manual workers are the first to get cars, while the children of managers tend to leave it till later. More generally, youngsters living in rural areas, whatever their social milieu, cannot do without their own means of transport. But the social hierarchy is reflected in the ways young people obtain a vehicle. A working class youngster buys a car, in whatever state of repair, as soon as they have their driving license. Youngsters from better-off families are still studying and not yet financially independent; they can hardly buy a car themselves and so hope for a loan or gift from their parents, sometimes having to wait quite some time for it. Whereas fewer children of manual workers pass their driving test before the age of 20, paradoxically they are more likely than the children of managers to have the use of a car at that age. No doubt they cannot afford the luxury of having a “symbolic” driving license without putting it into practice. The daughters of manual workers are the most likely to achieve transport independence only indirectly, by having the right to use their partner’s or husband’s car. It may be said that in better-off circles, the process of acquiring transport independence is prolonged or diluted, while in working class circles it is a quick, sharply-defined process. So in the particular case of acquiring transport independence, the passage to adulthood reveals some contrasts between social classes.

    1.3. Sexual Initiation and Conjugality: Consensual Union

    11Sexual initiation has not always been regarded as a relevant event for analysing the period of youth. Even a few decades ago it was considered (often accurately) that for women the start of sexual activity coincided with forming their first union. Surveys in those days asked no question about sexual initiation (Bozon, 2003). Because first unions have begun later and later and are increasingly informal, the way is open for a separation between the moment of a woman’s sexual initiation and the start of her conjugal life. The passage to genital sexuality is now regarded as a decisive social threshold in leaving adolescence and symbolically entering the “youth” period (Lagrange and Lhomond, 1997).

    12What event should the first sexual intercourse be coupled with? Given the importance traditionally laid on sexuality for reproduction purposes, it seems natural to couple age at first sexual intercourse with age at first childbirth (Chamboredon, 1985). It is highly significant that the interval between these two events, which in the 19th century was less than two years, is now nearly ten years, on average. This period of “sexual latency” illustrates quite well the recent extension of the period of youth and the now general use of contraceptives by young women. Because of the spread of contraception as a norm, most contemporary analyses of first sexual intercourse have abandoned the link with reproduction, comparing it instead with the start of conjugal life, since this link is no longer automatic. The interval between these two events gives the duration of preconjugal sexual life (Bozon, 2002b). Quantitatively as much as qualitatively, there are still sharp gender differences in the connection between initial sexuality and conjugality. For men, except for those whose sexual lives start relatively late, sexual initiation, the first romantic relationship and the forming of a couple are regarded as fairly distinct phenomena, separated in time (Bozon and Heilborn, 1996). Most women, on the other hand, defend an “ideal of the first time” (Le Gall and Le Van, 2003), according to which the first sexual intercourse should take place in a romantic relationship that is destined to last. From this standpoint, sexual initiation, even if it no longer happens in the context of a marriage, is still a kind of threshold leading to conjugal-relational life. Women do in fact start life in a couple sooner after their sexual initiation than men do. Coupling sexuality with its conjugal “referent”, we see how differently the same event can be interpreted depending on gender, these interpretations tending to reinforce existing gender roles.

    1.4. What Kind of Job Counts?

    13With regard to entry into working life, the logic seems to be a simpler one of stabilization and identifying stabilizing events. Questionnaires on young people’s occupational histories generally distinguish between the first job lasting more than a month (first event) and the first that lasted more than six months (consolidating event). They may also consider the status of the job: first fixed-term contract and first open-ended contract, internship or post with tenure. But it is probably desirable to introduce more subjective factors, less linked to the labour management perspective. In the Passage à l’âge adulte survey, respondents were asked at what age they had had their first “real job” and what type of job it was (Rougerie and Courtois, 1997). Taking a subjective element as the end point of the process of entry into working life reveals integration trajectories that are not systematically defined in terms of a set period of time (one year or five after the diploma, as in the CEREQ surveys), nor in terms of a first secure job contract. The analysis shows that, depending on their social trajectory and gender, individuals perceived as their first “real job” a job that was secure, or matched their level of education and training (they dreaded work that did not), or, if not secure, a job that offered mobility prospects. Giving importance to a subjectively defined event does not fundamentally change the analysis of the process of labour market integration but draws attention to less conventional situations.

    14Coupling initial biographical events with real or perceived “consolidation events” not only gives meaning to these first-time experiences but also reveals the diversity of people’s pathways to adulthood. Moreover, this interpretation framework can be useful for revealing the insecure or “uncompleted” nature of some individual trajectories, in Europe or elsewhere. In many sub-Saharan African societies, the emergence of an increasingly long and diversified period of transition between childhood and adulthood is causing major methodological challenges for the analysis of first-time biographical events.

    2. Neither Teenagers Nor Adults: The Fuzzy In-Between Status of Young Urban Africans

    15In sub-Saharan Africa, young people are increasingly a focus of attention for researchers and policy makers. Traditionally, the period between childhood and adulthood was based on pre-established rites for each age group and each sex. But with the increasing urbanization and school enrolment of the last few decades and the more recent economic crisis, it has become longer and more complex; “youth” has emerged as an important stage of life (Bledsoe and Cohen, 1993). In Africa as in Europe, demographers (and particularly users of life course surveys) often address youth in terms of a “transition to adult life”. They focus on the first-time experiences that punctuate the path to adulthood (first job, residential independence, first marriage and first birth) (Calvès et al., 2006; Antoine et al., 2001). But these classic markers of entry into adult life do not adequately account for the fuzzy transitory states that typify an increasing number of young people in today’s African cities. As in Europe, for a better grasp of the passage to adulthood some reflection about first-time experiences is needed.

    2.1. Emergence of Youth as a Life Stage in Africa

    16In most traditional African societies, the socialization of the younger generation is a responsibility of the community, under the strict control of the elders. For boys and girls alike, the passage from childhood to adulthood is marked by a series of rites of passage and initiation ceremonies. Among the Mossi, the largest ethnic group in Burkina Faso, the initiation camp and circumcision ceremony give a young man the right to spend his time with the adults, be granted a field of his own, leave the paternal home and marry (Gruénais, 1985). Among the Béti of Cameroon, a boy’s entry into the world of men is marked by the só rite and the accompanying initiation retreat (Mbala Owon, 1992; Laburthe-Tolra, 1981). Young Diola men in Senegal may not marry until they have been through the bukut circumcision and initiation ceremony (Pison et al., 2001). Girls undergo equivalent rites and initiation ceremonies. Undergoing excision gives a Mossi girl adult status, i.e., as with men, the right to take part in the life of the group and start a family (Badini, 1994). Among the Béti of Cameroon, the mevungu prepares pubescent girls for their future role as wife and mother (Vincent, 1976; Bochet de Thé, 1985).

    17In pre-industrial African societies, marriage is a key to adult status for both men and women. Traditionally, marriage is a union between two families rather than two individuals. Young women are married early and have their first child early (Guyer, 1984; Abéga, 1994). The transitory period between childhood and adulthood is often very brief, or even non-existent, with some girls going straight from “little girl” status to wifehood and motherhood. For men, depending on the case, marriage happens straight after the initiation rites, or once the young man has amassed enough money for the dowry. Although men marry markedly later than girls and sometimes remain single for a long time, their marriage is still under the absolute control of the elders, who decide on the timing and modalities.

    18School enrolment and urban growth have gradually changed the traditional pathways to adulthood. As early as the 1960s, increasing numbers of youngsters were moving into the towns to look for work, education or training. In Burkina Faso for example, in 1970 only 5% of the population lived in towns; in 1992, 17% did so. In Senegal and Cameroon, over the same period, the percentage living in towns rose from 20% to 50% (World Bank, 1994). The modern school has taken the place of the clan and the extended family as the main agent of socialization. In Burkina Faso, the gross enrolment rate in primary schools has multiplied five-fold in forty years, from 9% in 1960 to 44% in 2000 (World Bank, 1998, 2004). Senegal, starting from the higher rate of 27%, had achieved 75% by 2000. In Cameroon, primary school enrolment has become practically universal; from 57% in 1960, the gross enrolment rate had risen to 108% by the end of the 20th century1 (World Bank, 1998, 2004).

    19Distance from the family at home and access to waged work in the city gives young people the beginnings of autonomy and economic independence (Pascalis, 1992). Girls marry later than before, with a longer period of single life. The timing of entry into sexually active life and fertility is also changing, and increasing numbers of young women become sexually active and have children while still unmarried (Calvès, 2000). With a longer period of singledom, new forms of socialization outside the kinship group and the beginnings of independence from the elders, youth is emerging as a specific life phase in Africa (Bledsoe and Cohen, 1993).

    20With the economic crisis of the 1990s, the existence of young people as a distinct social group worthy of study was fully acknowledged. The crisis was described as multidimensional, because it affected every aspect of young people’s lives. A crisis in education first of all, with increasing numbers dropping out of school for lack of financial resources, while many young people rejected the school and university system because of rising unemployment among graduates (Lange, 1988; Kobiané, 1999; Moguerou, 2003; Gérard, 1997). Irrespective of education, the unemployment problem hit young people very hard. Job creation in the public and semi-public sectors was dwindling and the private sector was not in a position to replace them. Young people, including graduates, sought a solution in emigration or started working in the informal sector of the urban economy (Calvès and Schoumaker, 2004; Diagne, 2003). Access to residential independence and marriage also became more difficult and many young people, for lack of money, had to remain single and depend on others for housing (Sévédé-Bardem, 1997; Diagne, 2003).

    21At the political level, it was above all the disconnection of sexual activity from marriage and the high rate of HIV infection in the 15 to 24 age group in Africa that led to the emergence of policies and programmes specifically targeting young people (Calvès, 2002). In the 1990s, especially after the Cairo international conference, a growing number of reproductive health initiatives targeted young, single Africans, whose sexual activity was considered high-risk.

    22This political interest brought funding for research into youth, by now regarded as a “new life stage” in Africa. In the same way as “post-adolescence” (Galland, 1990) and “the fourth age” (Laslett, 1994) in Europe, analysis of this new life stage in Africa raises major theoretical and methodological challenges.

    2.2. New Trajectories into Adult Life

    23Because youth is a relatively recent issue in Africa, most studies of young Africans have been sectoral. They have generally been based on theoretical frameworks developed in specific areas of study such as education, employment, migration or − and these are the most numerous − sexuality and fertility. For more general research into youth, the Western model considers youth from the standpoint of entry into adult life (Galland, 1984, 2001). It is this model that has attracted most attention from researchers wanting to analyse quantitatively the changes that have affected young Africans in recent years (Antoine et al., 2001; Calvès et al., 2006). The idea is to “consider youth essentially as a passage involving two axes: a school/occupation axis and a family/matrimony axis” (Galland, 1996, p. 38) and study the social, occupational, matrimonial, family and residential conditions for the passage to adult life. Thus entry into adult life is defined by socially meaningful criteria, landmarks that correspond to changes in social status such as the end of school education, the start of working life, departure from the family home, marriage or the birth of a first child.

    24The results of studies focusing on the passage to adult life in urban Africa confirm that it is taking place later and later. Studies in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) identified the percentage of young people who at the age of 24 had not yet experienced any event significant for the transition to adulthood (first paid job, residential independence or marriage). This figure rose from 18% for men in the cohort born between 1955 and 1964 to 34% for those born between 1975 and 1984 (Calvès et al., 2006). Among women, 8% of the youngest generation compared to 4% of the oldest had passed none of the major social landmarks, including first childbirth. Similar trends have been observed in Dakar and Yaoundé (see Box 8). In Senegal, the first analyses of the data from the Jeunesse et devenir des familles survey in Dakar show that the proportion of men having experienced no transition event by the age of 24 rose from 25% for the oldest generation (1942-1956) to 35% for the youngest generation (1967-1976). The differences between generations are even more marked for women (from 9% to 48% from one generation to the other). In Yaoundé, young people are also finding it difficult to access certain adult responsibilities. According to a 1996 Crise et insertion urbaine survey in that city, the proportion of young men out of work, single and living with friends or relatives at the age of 24 had doubled in 25 years, from 23% for the 1942-1956 generation to 45% for men born between 1967 and 1971. More than one girl in five had not yet begun her family life (either first marriage or birth of first child) by the age of 24 in the youngest generations, compared to just 3% in the oldest generations.

    Box 8. Data Sources. Three Surveys: Jeunesse et devenir des familles à Dakar (IRD-IFAN, 2001), Dynamique migratoire, insertion urbaine et environnement au Burkina Faso (CERPOD-UERD, 2000) and Crise et insertion urbaine à Yaounde (IFORD, 1996).

    The life course survey Jeunesse et devenir des familles à Dakar was conducted between March and August 2001 by the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noir (IFAN). It took a representative sample of 1,290 Dakar residents (636 men and 654 women) aged 15 to 59, with the aim of studying demographic behaviour and particularly blended families, young people’s entry into adult life and households’ education strategies, all this in a context of persistent economic crisis. The data gathered trace the residential, occupational, reproductive and matrimonial histories of Dakar residents from several generations. The present analysis is based on three generations of men and women, born in the periods 1942-56, 1957-66 and 1967-76.

    The survey Dynamique migratoire, insertion urbaine et environnement au Burkina Faso (EMIUB) was a retrospective nationwide survey conducted in 2000 by Montreal University’s demography department and the demography teaching and research unit (UERD) of Ouagadougou University. The survey was intended to improve understanding of reproductive strategies in Burkina Faso. It recorded the residential, occupational, matrimonial and reproductive histories of 8,644 individuals. The results presented here are based on a sample of three generations of young men and women who at age 15-25 were living in Ouagadougou or Bobo-Dioulasso, in 2000 (those born in 1975-64), in 1990 (born 1965-74) and in 1980 (born 1955-64). For a more precise presentation of this survey, see Box 9 in Chapter 6.

    The survey Crise et insertion urbaine à Yaoundé (CIUY) was conducted by the Institut de Formation et de Recherche Démographiques (IFORD) in November 1996 in Yaoundé on a sample of 1,460 people aged 25-54 (714 men and 746 women). The main purpose of this survey was to understand the process of economic and social integration of migrants and non-migrants in the capital of Cameroon. For each individual in the sample, the known event histories were recorded for family issues (marriages, births and/or deaths of children), occupation (periods of work and unemployment) and migration (spatial and residential mobility), from birth to the date of the survey. For analysis, respondents were classed in four generation groups, 1942-56, 1957-61, 1962-66 and 1967-71.

    2.3. Fuzzy Transitory States of Urban Youth

    25Although fuzzy transitory states are nothing new in sub-Saharan Africa (Johnson-Hanks, 2005), with the prolongation of the transition period between childhood and adult status new categories of young people are emerging that are hard to classify. More precisely, what is emerging is new states that many young people pass through. Some of these new states are due to postponement of some landmark event on the way to adulthood, others to changes in the sequence and nature of the events that constitute the passage to adulthood. Some of these ill-defined in-between states, increasingly common in African cities, are the direct result of postponing a first stage in the model of entry to adulthood, such as the end of education for men and the end of singledom for women. While twenty years ago only a minority of young urban men were still students at the age of 25, this is no longer the case. In the cities of Burkina Faso, 21% of young men aged 15 to 25 were still studying at the age of 25 in 2000, compared to 16% in 1980. In Dakar, the proportion of young men who were still students at the age of 25 rose from 9% of those born in 1942-56 to 11% of those born in 1967-76. In Yaoundé, between almost identical generations to these, the percentage of men still studying at the age of 25 rose from 16% to 32%. As well as these eternal students there are the “hardened singles”. Thus in 1980, only 10% of young urban women in Burkina Faso were still single at 25; twenty years later, more than two-thirds were still single at this age. In Yaoundé, where only 15% of women in the generations born in 1942-56 were still single at 25 (i.e. neither married nor in a consensual union), for those born in 1967-71 this figure was 33%. It is in Dakar that the percentage of single young women has risen most sharply − from 14% in the oldest generation (born 1942-56) to 47% in the youngest generation (born 1967-76).

    26Postponement of a second stage in the process of entry into adult life can also generate fuzziness. This is not a matter of the age at which an event occurs, but the fact that an initial threshold has been passed but has not been confirmed by a subsequent event. Taking the coupling approach again, we find that one theoretical symbolic threshold has been passed, but the consolidating event has not yet happened. A typical example of this fuzzy transitory state “between the theory and the practice”, is that of unemployed young graduates − an increasingly common situation in African cities. For decades, a degree or diploma was an almost automatic passport to a stable job in the formal sector, for example the civil service. This is no longer the case. The analysis of life course data from these various African capitals clearly shows that, unlike developed countries, the most highly educated youngsters have had a particularly hard time in the labour market (Calvès and Schoumaker, 2004; Antoine et al., 2001; Diagne, 2003). In many towns, the “young unemployed graduates” category has become the symbol of the economic crisis, and educated young people have often lost their credibility and their prestige (Gérard, 1997).

    27Along with the postponement of stages on the way to adulthood, another source of fuzziness is changes in their sequence and nature. For example, more and more young people in African cities are “fast-tracking” − jumping a stage to move on to the next. A prime example of this is young unmarried mothers. Although marriage is still the main context for childbearing in West Africa, there are increasing numbers of unmarried mothers in the cities. In Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, 10% of young women who had their first child in 2000 were unmarried, compared to 4% in 1980. This phenomenon is still marginal in Dakar but is increasing rapidly in Yaoundé (Calvès, 2000; Kuate Defo, 1998). The question then arises of the social acknowledgement of unmarried motherhood and its “value” as a stage in a single girl’s passage to adulthood. The significance attributed to the pre-marital birth of a first child is likely to vary according to the type of sexual union involved. Young women in urban parts of Africa form unions of many different kinds (see Chapter 2, Union and Separation: love stories are never simple). Some informal unions constitute a stage in the matrimonial process, and the status of a woman giving birth in that context is similar to that of a young married mother. In other cases the young mother’s status is more ambiguous because the union is not seen as a preliminary step towards official marriage and the birth of a child is neither desired nor a logical outcome (Meekers and Calvès, 1997). It is increasingly frequent for young people in major African cities to live together without any matrimonial ceremony taking place; they form a growing category of “fast--trackers” (Thiriat, 1999). As with first childbirth, first cohabitation may or may not be a stage in the matrimonial process. Although cohabiting unions are often more stable than other informal unions, they involve many different types of situation and varying degrees of social recognition (Calvès and Meekers, 1999).

    28Along with the “fast-trackers” there are youngsters who pass into a “false” new stage. Taking the coupling approach, this refers to youngsters who pass an effective threshold into a new state without the consolidating event ever occurring. One clear example of this type of fuzzy in-between state is the first “real job”, which we mentioned earlier. Young people are being integrated much later into the labour market, with longer periods of unemployment. They (and particularly the educated youngsters) are also far more likely than in the past to find work only in the informal sector (Calvès and Schoumaker, 2004; Antoine et al., 2001). Earnings are not always lower in the informal sector than in the formal sector (House et al., 1993), but this trend towards informalization also seems to mean increasing job insecurity. It also seems that a growing number of young, working city dwellers do not earn enough to achieve residential independence. In Yaoundé, the proportion of men aged 25 who were in work but were still living with kin rose from 37% in the oldest generation in the survey to 44% in the youngest. In Dakar, the proportion of men aged 25 who were in work but were still living with their parents rose from 42% in the oldest generation to 58% in the youngest. In the two main cities of Burkina Faso, where half of 25-year-old working men were living with kin in 1980, that figure was 63% twenty years later.

    29The educational-occupational and family-matrimonial trajectories of young African city dwellers are thus increasingly varied, and the classic Western model of entry into adulthood does not account for the full range of situations encountered. A growing number of young African city dwellers live in a fuzzy transitory state between childhood and adulthood. In the light of this, the relevance of the landmark events usually adopted for quantitative analyses of entry into adulthood (first job, residential independence, first marriage, first childbirth) needs to be re-assessed.

    2.4. Looking for New Thresholds

    30To understand young people’s varied socioeconomic situations and pathways into adult life in African cities we need to identify datable first-time events in the educational/occupational and family/matrimonial fields that are closer to African realities.

    31Youngsters are leaving the education system and starting their first job ever later. Jobs in African capitals are increasingly insecure. Young people – students, unemployed or already in work − are staying longer in the parental home. In this situation, markers that help to qualify the status of young people living with their parents need to be identified. Markers concerning a youngster’s financial contribution to household expenses might be useful, for example. These would include their first contribution to food provision, the day to day running of the home, ceremonies (mourning, weddings, births), children’s schooling, the illness of a household member, etc. The young person’s involvement in family decision making in these fields might also be considered. The aim would be to pinpoint the moment from which they are consulted for family decisions and are being treated as a fully-fledged adult member of the family.

    32Subjective elements such as young people’s own perceptions of this prolonged period living with their parents should also be taken into account. How far is this cohabitation endured rather than chosen? If endured, at what moment or at what age does the young person’s view of their residential dependence change? Recording perceptions might also help distinguish between “true” and “false” thresholds, for example in access to employment. As in Europe, analysing subjective evaluations along with the objective characteristics of a job (duration, sector of the economy, job status, etc.) would shed further light.

    33New markers are also needed to take account of the deferral of first marriage and the increasing frequency of non-marital sexual unions and premarital births, as has been done elsewhere in the world. The date of first sexual intercourse is now an important datum to collect. It is essential to acknowledge that in many countries, sexual activity among young city dwellers is no longer confined to married couples. There are now many types of informal sexual union. Surveys recording classic matrimonial histories generally collect the dates of the start of cohabitation and of the various customary, civil and religious marriage ceremonies that punctuate the process of starting a union. It would be useful now to collect a chronology for informal sexual unions, whether or not the couple live together. For example, in a survey conducted in Yaoundé in 1997, Calvès et al. (2000) asked men and women aged 20 to 30 for their “romantic trajectory” consisting of all sexual unions lasting six months or more, or having resulted in a pregnancy.

    34Whatever criteria are used to select the unions to be included, other first-time events concerning unions could be recorded: first introduction to the family, first participation in key events in the partner’s family such as weddings, mourning, etc., partner’s first invitation to take part in family ceremonies, etc.

    35This event history would help to evaluate the diversity of consensual unions found in African cities. It would also shed light on the status of young single mothers and put pregnancies or births in the context of the type of union concerned. Data on subjective perceptions would also be useful. Marriage is still the main goal for most young men and women in Africa, but it may be worthwhile to assess how far young people view their prolonged singledom as a state they choose, or as one that is imposed on them.

    36The use of new, more relevant thresholds in the passage to adulthood, whether subjective or objective, has major consequences for data gathering. Upstream it seems essential to collect qualitative data to identify first-time thresholds that are relevant to today’s African cities. Then the new datable markers (objective and subjective) would have to be collected by specific surveys on the passage to adulthood, as is done in most industrialized countries. So far there have been few general studies on this issue in Africa. Most of these have been based on general life course surveys (residential, occupational, reproductive and conjugal histories) rather than purpose-designed surveys. After the quantitative survey, qualitative data could be gathered from a sub-sample of respondents to obtain a better grasp of some young people’s perceptions of such transitory states as prolonged cohabitation with friends or relations and periods of singledom, with or without children.

    Conclusion

    37In Western and African societies alike, event history analysis of the passage to adulthood poses major conceptual and methodological challenges. In both contexts the great cultural, social and economic changes of the past thirty years have profoundly changed young people’s residential, educational, occupational, family and matrimonial trajectories. In North and South alike, the period between the end of adolescence and adulthood is getting longer and trajectories more varied. In Europe, we find an increasing number of first-time events. They are less sharply demarcated and less formal, often reversible, and do not necessarily mark a significant change of state. The emergence of youth as a life phase is more recent in Africa. But there too, the classic markers of the passage to adult life do not cover the growing diversity of situations young city dwellers experience.

    38Although first-time events seem to be less and less meaningful on either continent, their research priorities are significantly different. In Europe there have been numerous analyses of entry into adulthood and a mass of data is available. The issue there now seems to be to identify relevant first-time events rather than gathering more data. Coupling first-time events, re-examining them in pairs, is a promising avenue to pursue. Systematically associating a first-time event with another that complements and confirms it gives meaning to the first event and reveals the diversity of pathways into adulthood.

    39This analysis framework may also prove useful for revealing the insecure nature of some trajectories in Africa, such as those where the first, insecure job is never confirmed by a later, steady one. However, the top research priority in Africa is to identify relevant first-time events and gather data on these new markers. This will require specific surveys. Sexual and romantic event histories, the first financial contribution to the household, participation in family decisions, and young people’s perceptions of their jobs, of living with relatives and of prolonged singledom are all relevant data. A record of these new first-time events would provide a better understanding of the fuzzy transitory states typical of many young city dwellers in Africa today.

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    Notes de bas de page

    1  The gross rate of primary school enrolment is the proportion of primary school pupils of whatever age as a percentage of the population aged 7 to 12 years, i.e. the official ages for primary schooling. Thus the gross rate can be higher than 100%.

    Auteurs

    • Anne E. Calvès
    • Michel Bozon
    • Alioune Diagne
    • Mathias Kuépié
    Précédent Suivant
    Table des matières

    Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

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    États flous et trajectoires complexes

    États flous et trajectoires complexes

    Observation, modélisation, interprétation

    Philippe Antoine et Éva Lelièvre (dir.)

    2006

    Biographies d’enquêtes

    Biographies d’enquêtes

    Bilan de 14 collectes biographiques

    GRAB (Groupe de réflexion sur l'approche biographique) (dir.)

    2009

    Manuel pratique d’analyse multiniveau

    Manuel pratique d’analyse multiniveau

    Arnaud Bringé et Valérie Golaz

    2017

    Enquêtes sur l’entraide familiale en Europe

    Enquêtes sur l’entraide familiale en Europe

    Catherine Bonvalet et Jim Ogg

    2006

    Méthodes de mesure de la mobilité spatiale

    Méthodes de mesure de la mobilité spatiale

    Migrations internes, mobilité temporaire, navettes

    Daniel Courgeau

    2021

    L’analyse statistique des trajectoires

    L’analyse statistique des trajectoires

    Typologies de séquences et autres approches

    Nicolas Robette

    2021

    Multilevel Analysis

    Multilevel Analysis

    A Pratical Introduction

    Arnaud Bringé et Valérie Golaz Paul Reeve (trad.)

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    Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories

    Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories

    Observation, modelisation and interpretation of life histories

    GRAB Harriet Coleman (trad.)

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    Objectivation, catégorisations et pratiques d’enquête

    Wilfried Rault et Mathieu Trachman (dir.)

    2023

    Nouvelles tables-types de mortalité

    Nouvelles tables-types de mortalité

    Sully Ledermann

    2024

    The Statistical Analysis of Trajectories

    The Statistical Analysis of Trajectories

    Typologies of Sequences and Other Approaches

    Nicolas Robette Paul Reeve (trad.)

    2025

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    Préface ■ Virage : une enquête exceptionnelle

    Michel Bozon

    Logement, intimité et genre

    Michel Bozon

    Chapitre 5. Le passage à l’âge adulte : repenser la définition et l’analyse des « premières fois »

    Anne E. Calvès, Michel Bozon, Alioune Diagne et al.

    Chapitre 4. L’hébergement : un état sans statut

    Valérie Golaz, Catherine Bonvalet, Daniel Delaunay et al.

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    Aka Kouamé, Eric Beining, Abdoulaye Gueye et al.

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    1 / 6

    Préface ■ Virage : une enquête exceptionnelle

    Michel Bozon

    Logement, intimité et genre

    Michel Bozon

    Chapitre 5. Le passage à l’âge adulte : repenser la définition et l’analyse des « premières fois »

    Anne E. Calvès, Michel Bozon, Alioune Diagne et al.

    Chapitre 4. L’hébergement : un état sans statut

    Valérie Golaz, Catherine Bonvalet, Daniel Delaunay et al.

    “Being Housed”: A State with no Status

    Valérie Golaz, Catherine Bonvalet, Daniel Delaunay et al.

    Chapitre X. L’enquête « Crise et insertion urbaine à Yaoundé »

    Aka Kouamé, Eric Beining, Abdoulaye Gueye et al.

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    1  The gross rate of primary school enrolment is the proportion of primary school pupils of whatever age as a percentage of the population aged 7 to 12 years, i.e. the official ages for primary schooling. Thus the gross rate can be higher than 100%.

    Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories

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    Calvès, A. E., Bozon, M., Diagne, A., & Kuépié, M. (2009). Transition to Adulthood: Rethinking the Definition and Analysis of First-Time Events. In Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories. Paris: Ined Éditions. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.ined.18763
    Calvès, Anne E., Michel Bozon, Alioune Diagne, et Mathias Kuépié. « Transition to Adulthood: Rethinking the Definition and Analysis of First-Time Events ». In Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories. Paris: Ined Éditions, 2009. doi:10.4000/books.ined.18763.
    Calvès, Anne E., et al. « Transition to Adulthood: Rethinking the Definition and Analysis of First-Time Events ». Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories, Ined Éditions, 2009, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.ined.18763.

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    GRAB. (2009). Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories (H. Coleman, Trad.). Paris: Ined Éditions. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.ined.18713
    GRAB. Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories. Traduit par Harriet Coleman. Paris: Ined Éditions, 2009. doi:10.4000/books.ined.18713.
    GRAB. Fuzzy States and Complex Trajectories. Traduit par Harriet Coleman, Ined Éditions, 2009, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.ined.18713.
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