Deregulation of life course and Adolescents' life goals

The presented paper is focused on the problem of sociallife organization as a source of changes in human behaviour and development. Based on the discussion of literature from the areas of life-span psychology, life-course sociology, and psychology of future-orientation, evidence for the increasing importance of non-normative challenges in human development is presented. Firstly, an overview of changes in social age system in modern society is given to describe the phenomenon of life course deregulation during the late 20th century. Secondly, some of the empirical data on adolescents' life-plans are discussed in a perspective of expected changes in the transition to adulthood of next generations of young people. Regarding adolescents' life planning, it is concluded that young people are aware of changes in the normative structure of life course, and they manifest a long moratorium on entering adulthood, mainly in the area of goals related to family life.

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