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Older-age care politics, policy and institutional reforms in Lithuania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

ARUNAS JUSKA  and
GABRIELE CICIURKAITE
ARUNAS JUSKA*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
GABRIELE CICIURKAITE
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA.
*
Address for correspondence: Arunas Juska, Department of Sociology, East Carolina University, 410-A Brewster, 10th Street, Greenville, NC 27858, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study investigates the dynamics of policy reforms pertaining to care for older adults in post-socialist Lithuania. In the Soviet era social services in Lithuania were in a rudimentary stage of development. By the early 1990s a combination of long-term demographic trends such as ageing, a decline in fertility rates and an increase in divorce rates, and the impact of radical neo-liberal reforms significantly increased the number of older individuals living alone and in poverty. In response, a number of measures were undertaken to reform older-age care, resulting in decentralisation, institutional layering and institutional recalibration of social services. It is argued that the historical legacy has proved to be especially significant in the institutional development of social services by reproducing a State-centred system, although with a growing trend towards the privatisation and marketisation of social care. The role of various organised interests and civic groups, policy makers and international organisations, as well as ideologies and broader sets of cultural values in shaping social services pertaining to the care of older adults are discussed.

Keywords

post-socialist welfareelder-care serviceswelfare reforms
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , April 2015 , pp. 725 - 749
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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