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In 2020, COVID-19-related governmental restrictions forced individuals to radically change their habits, possibly impacting on their living arrangements. Whether COVID-19 affected young adults' propensity to leave the parental home is still unknown; Southern Europe is of particular interest, as youth experience the "latest-late" transition to adulthood, face uncertainty in the labor market, and receive low welfare support. Using EU-SILC longitudinal data from Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, this study examines how home-leaving rates evolved in the short-term and explores the relationship between governmental restrictions, economic characteristics of households and young adults, and leaving home behaviors. Descriptive analyses reveal that the share of young adults leaving the parental home in Southern Europe between 2019 and 2020 slightly increased compared to previous years. Discrete-time event history models show that the propensity to leave the parental home increases with the stringency of policy measures. Young adults with the highest likelihood to leave home are employed individuals whose households are in the lowest income quintile as well as students from the highest income quintile, suggesting that, in these countries, residential independence is associated with either the acquisition of economic resources in the labor market or the availability of family resources. We interpret this result in favor of an "independence effect" exerted by COVID-19-related restrictions on young adults; future research might establish whether this trend is temporary or persistent over time. • Young adults exposed to similar conditions in Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal. • We apply survival models to EU-SILC data 2017-2020 and Oxford stringency index. • Stringent policies associated with an increased probability to leave home in 2020. • In Southern Europe, we interpret this result as an "independence effect". • Young adults' and their households' economic resources are key determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theories about social and demographic change, such as individualization and the Second Demographic Transition, embed the notion of a convergence towards a specific ideal-typical pathway to adulthood, which we define as late, protracted and complex. After a discussion of the relevant literature for and against such an idea, we empirically assess the convergence to this ideal-typical pattern using new retrospective data from the European Social Survey wave 3 (ESS-3). Our analysis of the timing and sequencing of demographic events among young adults offers qualified support for the emergence of a new pattern of transition to adulthood. Pathways to adulthood are changing in the same direction in most parts of Europe, hut no convergence of trends is observed (yet). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that there are two approaches to life course analysis. These are event-based and holistic approaches. There are several elements that influence life course research. These include individual development, history and culture, social relations and the timing of lives. Demographers who are aware of the life course approach know that the key elements are connected to notions used to define the coordinates of populations in demography.

Abstract The Internet has partly displaced traditional offline meeting venues for partners. Here, we study whether meeting online is selective, i.e., whether there are differences in Big Five personality traits and sociodemographic background characteristics between those who meet online and offline. Using eight waves of the German Family Panel (pairfam), with observations from 7192 respondents from three birth cohorts (1991–93, 1981–83, and 1971–73) between 2008 and 2016, we found that meeting online is more likely for female respondents than males; for respondents from the older birth cohorts compared to the youngest one; for respondents with primary education compared to those who are currently enrolled and have no degree; for respondents who have shorter relationship durations; for those who have a higher number of previous partners; and for those who have less extroverted personalities. As we split the data by cohorts, it appears that meeting a partner online is slightly more selective for the oldest birth cohort than for the youngest one. Moreover, extraversion was consistently associated with meeting online in every birth cohort, and the association was negative in every case. These findings are discussed with reference to compensation and rich-get-richer hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]