Outcomes of Adolescence and Perceived Life Chances in Romanian Youth

The transition from adolescence to young adulthood can be seen as a multifaceted process where social and individual factors shape young people's lives. Outcomes of adolescence can be seen as individual and social developmental tasks that prepare one to become a productive, healthy, responsible, well-functioning adult. This includes a minimal level of personal competence, personal relationships, personal well-being, the capacity for intimacy and social bonding, a healthy lifestyle and the avoidance of problem behaviour.

We intend to assess if school transitions and the worsening of specific outcomes of adolescence can explain the perceived life chances.

The Romanian sample of 3509 nationally representative high school students in their final school year (12^th grade) was surveyed in Nov 2012-Jan 2013 in the first wave of "Outcomes of Adolescence. A longitudinal perspective on the effect of social context on successful life transitions" project.  The 2nd wave of the longitudinal study took place in Dec 2014-Jan 2015.   

The first wave questionnaire evaluated the educational situation (results, the intention continuation of the studies), the orientation toward the labour market (the entry on the labour market, their long-term work-related aspirations as well as their representations regarding career possibilities), their social capital (relations with family, peers from neighbourhood, friends), their well-being, health and risky behaviour. The second wave is oriented toward measuring specific outcomes of adolescence and toward taking into account life-course events and other social circumstances that could influence young people on their path to adulthood while a specific section is trying to evaluate the perceived life chances. The study is trying to evaluate if unsuccessful transitions (in education, labour market or other aspects of social life) is most likely to have an impact on perceived life-chances.