T The paper examines the strategies of young people in Bulgaria for responding
to and dealing with uncertainty in the passage to autonomy. It focuses on the active
engagement of the young in the processes of identity formation and gaining independence,
thus initiating a change in the common patterns of growing up. The biographical choices
that the young make are analysed as embedded in a multilayered social context involving the
interplay of macro societal changes, shifts in organisational policies and practices and
restructuring of gender and generational relations in the family. Theoretically this paper
builds upon the concept of uncertainty in understanding the dilemma of structure and agency
in youth transitions. The analysis is based upon official statistical information about
economic and demographic trends in 21st century Bulgaria and the findings of an
organisational case study of a social service agency and biographical interviews with young
working parents, which were conducted within the framework of the international
Transitions project. Two case studies of individual strategies of young women – one from a
working class family and the other from an ethnic minority - are presented in more detail in
order to examine the agency they apply in coping with uncertainty and the resources they
mobilize in devising (everyday and short-term) life projects. The combination of quantitative
and qualitative data allows a reflection on the process of managing uncertainty with regards
to the past experiences, present meanings and future aspirations of young people as
influenced by the contracting state support and contradictory company policies in Bulgaria.