Public Attitudes towards Social Policy: the Role of State, Individual and Family in Social Provision and Welfare in Lithuania

Abstract

This article discusses increasingly heterogeneous nature of socialpolicy in contemporary societies, focusing on the analysis of publicattitudes towards the role of state, individual and family in thesocial provision. Existing literature does not present one answerwhat institutions should have a central role in creating social welfareas liberal and Marxist theories have different answers about therole of the state in social provision. Lithuania was selected asa case for analysis because it is interesting as a post-soviet country.In this context, the question is whether people still have big expectationsfor the state's role in social provision (as in soviet times) orare prepared to take responsibility themselves. The paper is basedon the results of two interrelated projects: the research project'International Social Survey Programme: Monitoring of Lithuaniansocial problems (ISSP-LT)'1 and the research project 'Monitoringof social problems: implementation of International S