Life course perspectives in studying youth transitions to adulthood: bridging qualitative and quantitative approaches

The YouthLife project aims to strengthen research on youth transitions from a life course perspective by facilitating multifaceted capacity building at the Centre of Interdisciplinary Life Course Studies (CILCS) at Tallinn University (TLU) through a partnership with three internationally-leading research institutions with complementary methodological expertise and experience: University of Bamberg (UB), University of Southampton (UoS), and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI).

YouthLife will create beneficial conditions for TLU to become a first class research institution integrated into leading international networks of life course research with the potential to be a reliable and credible partner for further collaborative research at EU level.

The project will increase research, cooperation and networking capacities through peer-to-peer interaction, experience exchange, methodological knowledge transfers and mutual learning during four intensive training courses, six practical workshops, online resources, study and research visits.

YouthLife will also improve research management and administration (RMA) skills at TLU and upgrade its RMA support system.

The project will tackle the divide between quantitative and qualitative approaches in life course research, introduce methodological innovations and provide new insights into youth transitions to adulthood.

The methodological knowledge and experiences gained will be applied to the elaboration of the conceptual and methodological framework of the new Estonian Longitudinal Study of Youth (ELSY) during the project and its implementation afterwards, with the aim of filling the gap in longitudinal data for a better understanding of youth transitions to adulthood.