Generation and value changes in Lithuania: a few insights through the prism of European Social Survey
In recent years in Lithuanian politics, or even more broadly in the whole public sphere, it has become popular to talk about a renewal that has been almost exclusively related to some younger people coming to various public positions. In other words, it is all about a generational change. Today or exactly 30 years after the reform movement Sąjūdis inspired political and social revolution in Lithuania, such generational change is inevitable simply due to the flow of time. But much more important than just simply to state that Lithuanian society is experiencing fast generational change, to think about what this change means and what it brings. Let’s discuss today only a relatively narrow subject – values and generations – with a simple question: can we observe value changes comparing the older and younger generations?
A few remarks about generations
A very dynamic generational change is taking place and will continue in near the future in all areas in today’s Lithuania. It simply cannot be otherwise as the pre-independence generations are replaced by the post-independence generation. How fast this process might be it is well illustrated just by the fact that even those who were born in 1990 or at the moment of all political transformations begun, today are 28 years old — still young but reasonably grown up and mature. Moreover, if we look through the prism of technological innovation, it is namely those over twenty and around thirty who have presented most of today’s well-known innovations for the last 30-40 years globally. If we are to check the age of the founders of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Alibaba or GetJar, which has clear Lithuanian roots, when they started with what they have achieved now, we will be easily convinced that young age proves beneficial for breakthroughs in various areas.
