Contact : E. Guyavarch

Users of Paris emergency social services are called either as “isolated individuals” or “with their family” when accompanied by at least one minor child. What about minors from such families when they come of age? Are they still accommodated with their parents or dealt by services as isolated users? Does it depend on gender? Are they likely to repeat parental patterns of access to welfare services?

To answer these questions, we focused on their becoming after they became adults. Since available data allow the users follow-up, we studied minors taken in charge from 1999 to end 2009.

On the one hand, data analysis shows that assistance is rarely interrupted because of legal majority: among individuals accommodated by emergency social services on their 18^th birthday, assistance is suspended for only 10% and extended in most cases for schooling or familial reasons. In the latter case, assistance eventually stops when families are redirected to other social services or do not necessitate further help. On the other hand, among minors initially accommodated with their families, only 6% remain in the aid system as “isolated individuals” after majority, and 4% as parents taken in charge “with their family”.

Although the follow-up is truncated (some minors considered as having left the system may come back after end 2009), one can reasonably reject the assumption that resort patterns to emergency social assistance (by the 115 emergency line) are massively transmitted from parents to children.

Thanks for reviewing Isabelle Frechon (chargée de recherche CNRS)

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