Tracing pathways: The impact of the polycrisis on mental health trajectories in emerging adulthood

The accelerating convergence of global crises, including climate change, pandemics, geopolitical conflict, forced migration, digital transformation, and rising social inequality, has fundamentally reshaped the developmental environment for emerging adults (ages 18–29). Positioned at the critical juncture of identity formation and societal integration, this cohort faces unprecedented structural and psychological challenges. While scientific discourse, exemplified by the recent Lancet Psychiatry Commission, increasingly links macro-level megatrends to deteriorating mental health in this group, the specific transmission mechanisms remain analytically challenging. Building on this discourse, the article proposes a conceptual systematization of these pathways. The crisis concept is expanded beyond objective events to encompass crisis as a permanent narrative and a mechanism of ideological disruption. A critical reflection addresses the Western-centric bias in precarity discourse and conceptualizes the “polycrisis” as a syndemic that exacerbates vulnerabilities differently across the Global North and South. By integrating structural precarity, erosion of the symbolic order, and mechanisms underlying compromised transitions, a multi-layered transactional framework is outlined. This model links systemic disruptions to the dual developmental tasks of identity formation and social integration, providing an analytical lens to understand how structural incoherence contributes to individual psychopathology.