Values, Attitudes and Energy Saving Behaviour in Lithuania

Individual behaviour has a significant role to play in reducing the negative impacts of climate change. The energy sector is a significant component impacting climate. Although individual energy saving behaviour can be perceived as something detached from climate change, it is important because of its impact and is therefore the subject of research. The aim of this study is to identify the main factors influencing energy saving behaviour in Lithuania. The Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Theory of Basic Human Values are tested using the European Social Survey Round 8 data. The results show that intention to save energy is the most important factor influencing behaviour. Values are also a strong predictor of energy saving behaviour. Attitudes towards climate change and perceived behavioural control have only a very weak relationship with behaviour.

Mobility Restrictions and Transnational Families: How COVID-19 Pandemic May Affect Families and Caring for Children?

In this article, we analyse how global mobility restrictions related to COVID-19 may affect Lithuanian transnational families and transnational practices of parenting. The article draws on the data from the quota-based survey, implemented while carrying out the research project ‘Global Migration and Lithuanian Family: Family Practices, Circulation of Care and Return Strategies’ (No. S-MIP-17-117), funded by the Lithuanian Research Council, to analyse the transnational care practices that require the mobility of family members. The challenges created by the pandemic are discussed while analysing the data from the case studies of transnational families. The article reveals that the free mobility of family members in the global world is an important part of the transnational care practices, ensuring continuity of family relations and childcare, regardless of the residence of the family members. The anti-mobility regimes create challenges to family unity, intergenerational relations and give ground to the emergence of new stigmas.

Seeking a Solution to the Problem of Prostitution: Application of Repressive Social Politics

C. Benoit et al. (2018) distinguish three models of social policy that reveal different approaches to prostitution: repressive (prohibiting prostitution), regulating and integrating (decriminalizing prostitution). In Lithuania, a repressive model of social policy is applied in prostitution – both the client and the person providing sexual services are fined. Currently, active social campaigns are underway to apply the Nordic (or Equality) model in prostitution in Lithuania: only the client who buys sexual services would be committing a crime and therefore fined. Although adapting the Nordic model would reduce women’s administrative criminality in female prostitution, the authors consider, based on a case study and the experience of other countries, whether focusing on repressive social policy legislations will address the stigma and isolation that hinder the integration and empowerment of women.

Interrelation Among COVID-19 Situation, Evaluation of Government Actions and Subjective Well-being in Lithuania

The huge and sudden challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic created the need for quick governmental decisions, at the same time provoking changes in subjective public perception. The article empirically analyses the attitudes of different groups in Lithuania towards the COVID-19 situation, government actions and changes in subjective personal well-being. A representative public opinion poll (N-804) was conducted to achieve this goal. Empirical research sought to elucidate individual self-protection measures, attitudes towards the danger of the virus, government-implemented measures to combat the pandemic, and common stereotypes as well as consequences for subjective well-being. The cluster analysis confirmed the assumption that there is a link between the perception of the role of society and expectations towards the government, and between the dynamics of trust in key political actors and support for specific government actions in the context of a pandemic. If the group is more self-reliant, government policies that regulate even small aspects of public life lead to disagreement (in the case of 1st cluster), and vice versa, if the group has high expectations of government, it receives support (in the case of 3rd cluster).

Collective and Individual Factors in the Development of Creative Ideas in Art: The Perspective of Film Directors

The study focuses on the question if and how it is possible to balance the freedom of developing artist’s individual creative idea and the societal demand for art defined in a concrete political context. The theoretical basis for the article is formed by research approaches grounded on sociology of creativity and social psychology. The object of the case study is film directors who had obtained funding for the production and dissemination of their films within the funding program ‘Latvian Films for Latvia’s Centenary’ (2016–2018). The experience of film directors (N 16) was examined by using in-depth interviews and transcriptions analysed in accordance with qualitative methodology. The study identified two contingent levels of creativity inspiration – the individual and the societal or collective level. The authors identify several development models of the film directors’ creative ideas, three of which are dominant: the independent outsider who stresses individual, seed-incident based creativity factors independent of the Latvian Centenary program; the independent idealist who stresses both individual and collective factors, independent of the Latvian Centenary program; the conforming patriot who stresses collective creativity factors that stem from the Latvian Centenary program. The view represented in the film directors’ interviews has in common the assumption that the Latvian Centenary call had a positive influence on the film ideas, allowing the development of the artistic vision and conceptualising the framework for the expression of their ideas. The directors emphasise that there was no intentional configuration of the film creative ideas by formally adjusting them to the demand, thus circumventing the barriers of social field’s gatekeepers. In many cases the idea had been developed long before the film idea call. Most directors admitted that the goal of the Centenary call appeared important to them both in terms of the state, and on the social and personal level.

Intergenerational Functional Solidarity in the Family: The Case of Latvia

Functional solidarity is one of the six components of intergenerational solidarity in the family. It includes both the provision and receipt of assistance between adult children and parents, as well as mutual financial and emotional support. Parents continue to help their children even after they have grown up and have their own families, and adult children support parents.

Loneliness and its Predictors in Lithuania and the European Context

Loneliness as a subjective consequence of social exclusion has a negative impact on both individual and public health, and impedes societal development. Even though Lithuania has one of the highest rates of loneliness among EU countries, it has not been closely studied. This paper presents for the first time the analysis of the prevalence and factors of loneliness in Lithuania, covering all age groups, and provides the European context. Data from the European Social Survey 7th Wave (2014) were analysed using binary logistic regression. Contrary to our expectations, (older) age is not a predictor of loneliness in Lithuania. Lonely people are more likely to be of other nationality than the majority and the main minorities (i.e. not Lithuanian, Russian or Polish); are less likely to live with a spouse or partner, but more likely to live with children in the same household; more often experience serious financial difficulties; have a history of financial instability in their childhood; tend to have poor subjective health. Not having a partner/spouse and lower economic status are well known risk factors of loneliness from previous international studies. In the context of European countries, the share of lonely people in Lithuania is about average and living without a spouse/partner is a common characteristic of loneliness across all countries. However, other factors of loneliness, such as financial difficulties (current and during childhood), living with children in the same household and poor subjective health appear to be more pronounced in Lithuania.

Anti-immigrant Attitudes in the European Union: What Role for Values?

This paper aims to analyse the connection between values individuals hold and perception whether immigration is bad or good for economy in the European Union. It applies the multilevel modelling approach on the European Social Survey rounds 1–7 and a set of the OECD economic measures. The method allows for an examination of personal (values, socioecomic and demographic) and contextual (GDP, inequality and unemployment rates) drivers of anti-immigrant tendencies. The results show that individual values are connected to how people perceive immigrants in the EU.

COVID-19 Pandemic and Fertility: What to Expect in the Future?

COVID-19 pandemic has impact on many aspects of social life. The paper discusses the potential effect of the pandemic on fertility. It is based on the theoretical analysis of the impact of the past pandemic of modern world (Spanish flu) on the fertility and potential mechanisms which will be at play in the post-COVID-19 pandemic fertility trajectory. The paper also overviews the most recent demographic fertility and family statistics, which show that fertility and marriage rates decreased in Lithuania significantly during the first year of the pandemic. The survey results from 2021 reveal that fertility intentions in the cohort 1985–89 were delayed by approximately 25%. It is concluded that fertility will be mostly affected by the way the state and society will solve the issues related to gender roles in the family, gender equality in labour market, social capital and trust, all of which had been challenged by the pandemic.

Housing as an Object of Consumption: Analysis of Functional, Symbolic and Investment Value

Analysis of housing as an object of consumption rests upon the concept of the value of consumer object. A set of certain features of an object constitute its value and housing is explored by analysing its functional, investment and symbolic value. The results of the empirical study allows us to reasonably state that housing as an object of consumption is recognizable in the population surveyed. The assessment of functional, investment and symbolic value aspects varies with respect to the basic characteristics of housing – location in the city, living area and type of housing. The analysis of housing as an object of consumption revealed growth trends in the relevance of investment value, changes in attitudes towards housing loans and the relevance of owner status in the housing tenure.