Jarosenko, Natalija (2016) IN-WORK POVERTY IN LITHUANIA: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. PhD thesis, University of Sheffield.
Abstract
In-work poverty challenges the conventional understanding and explanation of poverty. The concepts of work and poverty were for a long time seen by policy makers as having little in common. However, official in-work poverty figures of the last decade reveal that employed people are not immune to poverty. What is more, incidents of in-work poverty are neither unique nor isolated. The most recent statistical data show that nearly 9 per cent of employees in the European Union are facing risk of poverty. Consequently, this phenomenon is gradually becoming a most pressing issue that, until recently, had been largely ignored by both the scientific community and policy makers in Europe. This dissertation examines the extent and nature of in-work poverty in Lithuania, a country that joined the EU in 2004. It aims to analyse the contextual determinants of in-work poverty in the country, as well as expose factual and experiential dimensions of the phenomenon. This study uses mixed research methods consisting of two main inquiry strategies: a quantitative examination of in-work poverty indicators and qualitative analysis of in-work poverty experiences. It uses both primary and secondary data analysis by combining empirical data drawn from the Eurostat statistical database with data collected via qualitative semi-structured interviews. Even though the research was conducted in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-08, a time when in-work poverty rates in Lithuania escalated to unprecedented levels, the findings are contextualized as they represent an outcome of long-term structural arrangements and prevalent ideological discourse. The findings of this study challenge the dominant idea that creation of jobs and integration into the labour market can be considered a sustainable anti-poverty policy. It reveals that predictors of in-work poverty in Lithuania are primarily ingrained within the very structures that are often seen as safeguards against poverty in capitalist countries, namely, the labour market and welfare state.
Metadata
Supervisors: | Walker, Alan |
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Awarding institution: | University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Sociological Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Natalija Jarosenko |
Date Deposited: | 10 Mar 2016 14:07 |
Last Modified: | 31 Mar 2016 09:06 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:etheses.whiterose.ac.uk:12237 |
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