Būsto sektorius įvardijamas kaip viena iš potencialių nelygybių ir kaip skirtumas tarp kartų generatorių. Jungtinės Karalystės ir kitų šalių tyrėjai pastebi, kad vyresnės kartos turėjo geresnes galimybes apsirūpinti būstu, nes jo pasiūla ir prieinamumas buvo geresni. Priešingai, pastaraisiais dešimtmečiais stipriai išaugus nekilnojamojo turto kainoms, būsto nuosavybės siekiančios jaunesnės kartos patiria daugiau sunkumų (Higgs, Gilleard, 2010). Tyrimai rodo, kad tėvų turima būsto nuosavybė suteikia ekonominį pranašumą ir leidžia jiems sutaupyti mažiau išleidžiant gyvenamojo būsto išlaikymui bei sukauptus ekonominius resursus perleisti vaikams, įvairiais būdais prisidedant prie jų būsto nuosavybės įgijimo (Mulder, Smiths, 2013).

The article analyzes the role of the intergenerational support in self-provision of housing in Lithuania. Changes within last decades in the field of housing policy in many Western European countries are associated with both the effects of the financial crisis that this sector suffered and the challenges posed by a shrinking welfare state. This situation as well as processes associated with changes in the labor market and demographic changes complicated the issue of self-provision of housing for representatives of younger generations. Researchers unanimously agree that older generations were more privileged in the housing sector because they had better possibilities to self-provide housing in an oversupplied housing sector or, in the case of Lithuania, to privatize it. In contrast, representatives of younger generations entering the housing market today are more vulnerable in terms of acquisition of housing ownership. Therefore, researchers consider the housing sector as one of the generators of generational differences and potential inequalities. It has been observed that the form of parental housing ownership plays an important role in the field of possibilities of material support for adult children. The disposition of housing ownership usually allows children to ensure an easier access to housing ownership. On the contrary, the access to high quality housing and especially the right of acquisition of housing ownership is much less possible for those who do not have parents or other close persons who could support their young households. In this regard, it can be argued that the transfer of intergenerational high-quality housing and particularly housing ownership may be considered as an expression of a transmission of a social and economic status which under different financial possibilities could reproduce social inequalities. [...]

This article analyzes the concept of the social housing system as a measure of support of the welfare state provided to persons who are unable to access housing themselves, and the general principles of the housing support policy. With the changing regulation of the social housing sector and the diminishing role of the state in this system, the provided support for social housing is directed at the economically weakest groups of the society. As a result, a significant part of households loses their right to the support measures for housing. The social housing system of Western Europe also faces challenges posed by the growing number of households of the new social groups including migrants and refugees. The article discusses the main models and features of the social housing policy in Lithuania. The prerequisites for the formation of the social housing system in the post-Soviet region and the characteristics of the sector as well as the development of the implementation of the Lithuanian social housing policy are presented in the article. The descriptive analysis of the secondary data of the Statistics Lithuania allowed the author to evaluate the differences in the social housing fund in the municipalities of the country (N=60). The results of the study uncover the differences across the Lithuanian municipalities in the size of population of the persons provided with social housing and the persons included in the waiting list of the support for renting a housing. The research also points to the hierarchy of the social housing sector group in the overall sector of housing provision.

The popularity of the narrative inquiry and biographical approach in the last few decades of the 20th century is associated with the so called ‘biographical turn’, when different disciplines turned towards life narrative as a unique experience of a person shaped in different social, cultural and political contexts and circumstances that have an inevitable influence on his/her self-identity and on the ways he/she makes sense of their experience. Biographical approach and the life history method are rather widely applied in the research of marginalised social groups because it reconstructs a chronologically structured personal life narrative and also sets an individual free through a narrative by deconstructing social norms and processes that shape the trajectories of a personal life. According to Anthony Giddens (2000), the reflexive element of the narrative inquiry enables a person telling his/her life history to see his/her past through the prism of a foreseen future and to construct and reconsider his/her identity. The application possibilities of biographical research strategies in the research of homelessness are reviewed and illustrated with life history interviews.