Each country in Europe has its own understanding of what youth is. To be young is not the same in the United Kingdom or in Italy, as their transition policies indicate. In the United Kingdom, policies address youngsters between 16 and 18 years old; meanwhile, in Italy and Spain, they concern young people from 18 to 30 and even 32 years of age. In European research meetings devoted to integration policies, British colleagues are often surprised to hear a Spanish colleague speaking about the transition for 30-year-old youngsters. They consider it improper. Mutual knowledge of these societal pecularities is still in the early stages, and European policies proposed by the European Union have not taken all of them into account.

Several factors explain this different understanding of what youth is. They have their roots in family traditions, school and training systems, modes of access to employment and of management of professionnal mobility, or labor market segmentation. Thus, the following contrasting situations have to be considered: Northern countries with nuclear families versus Southern countries with extended families; countries with general and undifferentiated compulsory schooling versus countries with differentiated tracks; countries with a tradition of apprenticeship managed by enterprises versus countries where vocational training is managed mainly by the school system; countries with a professional labor market versus internal markets or an informal labor market in local networks.

These elements are linked in national combinations that have their own balance, according to a long tradition.