Lithuanian men’s struggles with precarious life : unemployment, working identities, and strategies of survival

Abstract

Using semi-structured interviews with young unemployed Lithuanian men, this article examines three distinct male working identities associated with ways of coping with unemployment and a sense of precarity: “desperate conformists,” “liberated dreamers,” and men “lost in work transition.” The interviews demonstrate that unemployment stigmatizes men, particularly those with lesser professional and social competencies crucial to efficient participation in the labor market. Therefore, the respondents’ incessant attempts to search for a job or their dreaming about it can be regarded as a way of resisting stigmatization and precarity.