Authors

Jekaterina Navickė¹;  ¹ Vilnius University, Lithuania

Discussion

Social policy has a non-negligible role in shaping people’s lives. We aim to identify how the post-Soviet transformation in the field of social policy affects the life course of the 1980-2000 birth cohorts in Lithuania. To achieve this goal, we use the "life course policy" analysis scheme proposed by Leisering & Walker (1998). The scheme distinguishes between three main spheres of social policy that are important in shaping life courses: education, risk management systems and old-age pensions. Moreover, three traits of the life course policy are identified: structuration / differentiation, integration and normative modelling. 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union Lithuania can be attributed to post-Fordist life course policy regime. This transition happened much earlier in other western countries (Leisering 2003). Compared to the previous cohorts, the life course of the 1980-2000 birth cohort in Lithuania is being transformed as it faces de-standardization, de-politicization and re-institutionalization. Furthermore, we analyse transformations of the life course policy in Lithuania by examining the processes of structuration / differentiation, integration and normative modelling in the fields of education, risk management and old-age pensions. We conclude that the life course policy in post-Soviet Lithuania can be characterized as following a weakly integrated model of “segmented security”. The analysis is based on the review of the previous literature, documents and research, as well as on the results of the original in-depth life-story interviews conducted in 2021.

Keywords: life course, social policy, transformation, Lithuania