Young adult families - An evolutionary slowdown or a breakdown in the generational transition?

This article is divided into two parts. The first one, through both qualitative and quantitative data, shows the results of research concerning Italian families with young adults. The second part is devoted to qualitative research and related findings. In particular, young adults ages 20 to 30 have been interviewed jointly with their parents. Given that the evolutionary slowdown is also due to the labor market (see the high rate of youth unemployment), family relations have a wider scope and a specificity of their own. Results outline that family relations prove to be at once an optimum context for children's self-fulfillment and a hindrance for the generational transition. The problem lies in the representation of adulthood that both parents and children share, which in turn stems from the split that is now quite evident between self-fulfillment and the life course transition.