Since the mid-20th century, both France and Russia, despite different social, economic and political environments, have incentive-based demographic and family policies. The family and marital careers of their populations share some common features. In particular, marriage is no longer the only way to form a couple, and the age at the first child's birth has risen. Nonetheless, these apparent similarities conceal significant differences. Studying the timing of the first events in adulthood - completing education, leaving the parental home, finding a job, forming a couple for the first time, and becoming a parent - and the conditions underlying them reveals how transition toward adulthood evolved in both countries. It also brings to light the complexity and diversity of changes that affected the generations born since the mid-1930s.