This article analyses family emancipation and the transition from school to work in
the context of transition to adulthood in Catalonia, and discusses some central
issues of youth sociology. The data used have been provided by the 2002 Catalan
Young People Survey (Casal et al.,2004), carried out in 2002 and 2003,
which was commissioned by the Catalan government and managed by the Education and
Work Research Group (Autonomous University of Barcelona). The survey was done with a
representative sample of 2000 young people from Catalonia aged between 15 and 29.
This article explains the postponement of leaving home, the new degrees of autonomy
managed by young people and the relationship between the age of emancipation and the
complexity of transition from school to work. Finally, we highlight some conclusions
with regard to the theoretical framework and policy-making issues.