Women and Men As Providers of Informal Social Assistance: The Case of Lithuania

Viewed form configurational perspective, family is a complex set of personal ties and interdependencies that extend far beyond it’s boundaries and include not only more distant kinship, but also friends (Widmer, 2010). Basing on this theoretical approach, the roles of women and men in the informal social support networks are explored in the paper. This makes a novelty of research, because most commonly gender differences in provision of informal care and assistance within a family of procreation and a family of orientation are discussed in a literature, leaving aside the commitments to the other persons.

The paper examines the peculiarities of informal mutual social support networks, focusing on the place of women and men - close relatives, distant kinship or friends / neighbours in these networks. Individual experiences in giving and receiving assistance are discussed and personal views regarding the expected potential providers of instrumental and emotional support (i.e., persons who would be addressed and asked for a help in case of urgent need) are analysed from gender perspective, basing on complex Lithuanian data: (1) the results of the questionnaire survey carried out at the end of 2011- beginning of 2012 (a sample - 2000 respondents, representing national population born respectively in 1950-1955, 1960-1965, 1970-1975 and 1980-1985); (2) the findings of the in-depth interviews with 23 fathers (representing of the same birth cohorts), conducted in summer of 2012 in the six regions of Lithuania.

The investigations were accomplished in a frame of the four years research project „Trajectories of family models and social networks: intergenerational dimension”, financed by the European Social Fund (ESF).