Labour market flexibilisation in Lithuania: Outcomes and impacts on gender differences in work arrangements

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impacts of 2017’s labour law liberalisation on labour market flexibility in Lithuania. While employment did grow rapidly in 2017–2019, there was little change in labour market flexibility. Against expectations, part-time employment declined as labour relations continued to be administered under path-dependent institutional inertia inherited from previous decades. The prevalence of full-time, dual-earner employment was shaped by the country’s socialist legacy and was reflected in high employment rates and permanent open-ended contracts for both men and women. Analysis also showed that the revised labour law lowered the probability for women with family care responsibilities to be hired. Once hired, they were offered permanent employment albeit with the reduced protections that such contracts now provide. Impacts of the new labour law on shaping what is considered to be ‘men’s work’ and ‘women’s work’ in Lithuania are discussed. JEL Codes: J00

Disembedded politics: Discourses on Neoliberal Labor Law reforms in Lithuania (2014–2016)

“…While domestic business interests did back the government's plans to rewrite labor laws, post-reform developments raise questions about their motives in seeking liberalization reforms. Contrary to expectations, in the first two post-reform years (2018–2019) the proportion of permanent contracts in the Lithuanian labor market continued to grow (albeit with the reduced protections that such contracts now provide), while contract work actually declined and the use of the new flexible forms of employment remained marginal (Juska and Navicke, 2022: 10–11). This suggests that business lobbying for flexibility provisions was (as of yet) mostly a competitive policy signaling campaign designed to convey a message about the favorable business climate in the country (Appel and Orenstein, 2018).…”