Post‐adolescence as a new phase in the family cycle?

This article investigates the phenomenon of post‐adolescence and its implications for the persons affected—both the young people and their parents—as well as for social policy. The emergence of an extended ‘moratorium’ phase for young people still in the educational system, living alone yet financially dependent on their parents is related to changes in the value systems of modern societies, the rising economic prosperity for a greater proportion of the population, the earlier age of achievement of physical maturity as well as to structural transformations at the level of the labour market.