Adolescence involves a wide variety of transitions to adult roles and responsibilities.  These transitions include leaving home and school, getting a job, forming relationships, and sometimes having children.  This paper reports on research that has investigated the changing nature of youth transitions in New Zealand over the last 30 years. Our research aimed to uncover whether birth cohorts of young people have undertaken the transition to adulthood differently, and if so, what caused the differences.  We found important changes in the nature of youth transitions.  We also found that for cohorts who were born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the transition to adulthood differed from that experienced by both the preceding and later cohorts.  The evidence suggests that the state of the labour market at the time was a key driver of these differences.  There are a range of important policy implications from this study, particularly in the context of the current economic recession.

Keywords: Adolescence, youth unemployment, cohort analysis, youth development.