Contenu du sommaire : Les jeunes - The young People

More than a Thousand Million young People The question of youth has not been much studied as well by geographers as by demographers, particularly the differences at the world scale. Concepts are vague and difficult to transpose from a part of the world to an other, and the limits of the subject are indistinct. Just confining to the 15-24 young people and to demographic indicators we can observe a great diversity of situations that will strengthen in the future. To this diversity add differences inside the nations and differences in schooling, labour, marriage, sexuality, relationships, culture... all depending on gender and place, and that cannot be cut off from the social, demographic and political environment. Never we are faced to a youth but to "youths".

The Transition to adulthood in Italy The authors use cross-sectional data in order to study the transition to adulthood of young Italians, over the 1983-1993 decade. Leaving the parental home is evidently and increasingly postponed. Nevertheless, a slight rise of non-traditional family/residential states may be observed. The aims of this paper are mainly two. Firstly, we would like to describe the condition of young adults, accounting for changes in some basic characteristics and the position in traditional states. This is done by giving special attention to gender and geographical area differences. Secondly, some theoretical-based hypotheses are tested, putting a special emphasis on residential status. The postponement of the transition to adulthood seems to be a consequence - at least in some areas - of : a) changes in the family/residential and working structure ; b) the virtual absence of non-marital cohabitation in presence of delayed marriages.

Students and their parents: living together and time to move Most students are the age to do the transition frem adolescence to adulthood. Their progressive entry into adult life is marked in particular by leaving the parental home. Within the French student population, this departure from the parental home is often interrupted during weekends and holiday periods. However, almost one in three students keep on living in the parental home even during term time. Students living at home tend to be enrolled in institutions which are situated less than an hour away from the parental home, thus demonstrating the significance of geographic constraints. Continued residence in the family home is linked to age and progression of studies as well as to the social position of the family of origin. However, the time required to reach the place of studying from the parental home seems to be the most important factor in discrimination between those living and those non living in the parental home. Based on a questionnaire carried out in the Brittany region, France, a method is proposed for modelling continued residence in the parental home which enables geographic constraints linked to journey time to be distinguished on the one hand, and the effect of other economic, social or institutional factors on the other.

Young people and University in the «Nord-Pad-de-Calais» Region: between Mobility and Captivity In some areas, including the «Nord-Pas-de-Calais» region, to facilitate higher education démocratisation process, new places of formation have been created, first in the form of establishments depending on mother Universities, then new universities have been built. University patterns have been completely modified by these recent establishments for ten years. In the same time, a general growth of the population of students and a progressive compensation between different areas became to be visible. The spatial localisation of the establishments is crucial : the distance between the residence of potential students and universities has a determinant effect on the choice of orientation of the bachelors. But the proximity with the offer of formation often involves relations of captivity too.

Difficulties of children from separated families to achieve school Data from a French study conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies «INSEE» (1992) show how children's school achievement can be linked to family structure. Whatever the socio-economic status and related school heritage, parental separation is negatively correlated with school results, leading to a level of diploma lower than the standard within each socio-economic category. All categories are experiencing these parental separation effects, with shortening of the average length of scholarship. Whenever a step-family has been reconstructed, the child's secondary course of study, up to the final exam (French baccalauréat), seems to be less affected.

The role of young People in the familial Strategies in rural Tunisia In LDC's, the economic division unit is often the family. For this reason, young people are included into family strategies. Moreover, young people are recognised by their status into families rather than a particular social class. According to a survey conducted in 1996, we illustrate this principle in rural Tunisia. We emphasise relations between families and the physical environment and the opportunities that its gives, and the part of young people in the family strategies. Diversity of schemes, due to education and migration processes, is analysed with reference to two geographical scales.

Emancipation migrations in Belgium The paper analyses the proportion of people by age group living with at least one of their parents (non-married couples included) and then the intermunicipality migration rate by age. The conclusions are that emancipation in Belgium takes place between 20 and 30 and that the migrations linked with the growth of the household closely overlap the emancipation migrations. A principal component analysis of the growth rates of the cohorts between 1981 and 1991 shows that the cohorts aged between 10 and 20 in 1981 are the best markers of emancipation migrations in that period. The proposed net emancipation migration rate has been computed at an intra-municipality level. These rates are confronted with a typology of those divisions and mapped. The spatial pattern is analysed for Belgium and for the Brussels Region. Two case-studies look closer to a neighbourhood characterised by gentrification processes and to two garden-cities of different living standards.

Socialization and Marginalization of Youth in Brussels disadvantaged neighbourhoods, segre-gation at school This paper looks at the socio-spatial processes of exclusion of youth in Brussels and starts with the strong relation between concentration of young immigrants and neighbourhood poverty measures. These neighbourhoods concentrate the future generation of the urban population, but are at the same time the core of polarisation and social exclusion processes. The first results of a research on social exclusion and deliquency of youngsters in Brussels show that segregation in the schools, independently of school location, is a strong lever of marginalization for the youth of these neighbourhoods.

Family, professional and residential status of young urban people during the July Monarchy (1830-1848): study from nominal rolls of a 1837 census The concept of "transition to adult status" has been shown as vague or reversible in recent surveys. Furthermore, increasing difficulties on the labour market would imply a later instance of such a transition in our societies. The frequent reference to the past used in debates on society issues should be further specified and confronted to accurate data. The purpose of this paper is to analyse family, professional and residential status for young people living in the city of Versailles during the July Monarchy (1830-1848), by using marriage registers, local press and nominal rolls from the 1837 census, which allowed us to observe a sample of 854 15- 30 young people. This kind of survey could not be carried out in Paris where equivalent sources have disappeared. At that time, young people either : lived in the parental home, or were head of a household, or were taken in by a family, or were living in a furnished room, or were housed by their employer. The great importance of the last category, particularly among girls (20-30 %), the low marriage frequency, as well as its postponement, were all factors which revealed young people difficulties to emancipate. Such arrangements, which lend to a longer latency period, could be seen as "family tricks", as lesser harm anyway in comparison with the young people condition in rural areas or in factories.