Young Adults’ Perceptions of Life-Course Scripts and Housing Transitions: An Exploratory Study in Edmonton, Alberta

ABSTRACT

Today’s young adults enter a housing market substantively different from that of their parents, within a life-course path that is also profoundly changed. However, relatively little research considers how life-course and housing norms are perceived by young adults themselves, including in contexts where these norms are difficult to fulfil, such as Canada. We address this gap from the perspective of young adults in Edmonton, Alberta, drawing on focus groups conducted in 2017. Participants perceived that the transition to adulthood is changing as the housing market is becoming increasingly inaccessible, although homeownership remained an expectation. They recognized that normative life-course scripts had not yet changed to reflect new realities for young adults, producing feelings of in-between-ness. Our findings illustrate how housing provides a critical lens to explore this disjuncture between life-course scripts and life-course realities, as it is fundamentally implicated in both.

KEYWORDS:

• Adulthood
• life-course theory
• transitions
• focus groups
• Canada

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Undergraduate Research Initiative, University of Alberta.