Overview

Abstract (English)

In many societies, the transition to adulthood has become a protracted process. Postsecondary education is typically seen as a cause of this protraction. However, contemporary research on the transition to adulthood shows that attending postsecondary education is not a ‘mechanical’ cause of the protraction, but an element in the process by which young people build, drive or correct their own transition to adulthood. One of the ways by which they do this is enrolling anew in a postsecondary education programme after having interrupted their studies. We focus on one such society, Canada, and look into the process by which young graduates and young non-graduates enrol back in postsecondary education. We use data from a panel survey that enables us to follow a probabilistic sample of young Cana-dians from the moment they interrupt postsecondary education until the moment they enrol back or up to the age of 27. We use hazard models to test hypothesis about the process that leads them to enrol back or not. Our results show that, in Canada, enrolling anew is massive and that its timing and circumstances are compatible with the view that postsecondary education is not merely a ‘mechanical’ cause of the protraction.

Abstract (French)

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