Discussion

In this presentation, I would like to share my experience using a specific longitudinal youth research format to study changes in the life course in Lithuania from the second half of the 20th century to the present day concentrating on youth as a stage of the life course. This presentation focuses on the changes in the transition to adulthood over time - from Soviet standardisation to post-Soviet de/re-standardization and de/re-institutionalisation after Lithuania joined the EU and the Schengen area and went through economic upheavals and recession. I have examined these changes by combining life story interviews (biographical methodology) with demographic analysis of birth cohorts. I used two data sets. Quantitative data on demographic behaviour of five-year cohorts were generated from two waves GGS;(2006-2009) and Family and Inequality Survey;(2018-2021). Qualitative data, consisting of life story interviews, was collected in different projects in 2010-2022. This data allowed me to search for homogeneity/heterogeneity of individual experiences of a transition to adulthood and to confirm the shift from standardised and institutionalised life course trajectories to de/re-standardized and de/re-institutionalised ones. This presentation is part of the project "Growing up in Independent Lithuania: Life Courses of 1980-2000 Cohorts, Behavioural Strategies and their Contexts" (2021–2024).