Within the scope of the interdepartmental project "Investing in Youth: Evidence from Policy, Practice and Research", the Policy Research Initiative (PRI) is proposing an analytical framework to help understand the realities, issues and challenges facing Canadian youth in various spheres of life and at different stages of the passage to adulthood. This exercise is part of a wider reflection on the well-being and full integration of youth in Canadian society, set against the changing conditions shaping how youth enter adulthood and the resulting development of new forms of risk. This last aspect also makes it one of the first research papers inspired by the new PRI project on "Social Management of Risk".