In January 2026, Dr. Liili Abuladzė from Estonia joined the V. Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute at Vytautas Magnus University (VDU) as a new postdoctoral fellow. She will conduct a research project entitled “Later-Life Inequalities in Social Resources, Well-Being, and Disability in the Baltic States”.
This project examines the multidimensional factors shaping later-life inequalities in well-being, disability, and social resources in the Baltic States. Although the Baltics are ageing at a pace similar to other European countries, they have the lowest social expenditures on old-age disability and pensions. As a result, poverty rates among older adults are high, and care responsibilities fall disproportionately on family members. The Baltic States therefore offer a valuable case for analysing how changing structural systems shape life-course mechanisms that drive inequalities in well-being.
First, the project will map macro-level institutional characteristics and their interaction with demographic changes related to ageing and disability. It will analyse recent care policies, eligibility for and use of relevant services, and changes in living arrangements and family structures.
Second, the project will examine gender and educational inequalities in well-being across living arrangements, with a focus on past partnership trajectories and the accumulation of socio-economic resources. It will assess how cumulative, compensatory, and contextual mechanisms interact with individual well-being across varying levels of partnership complexity.
Third, in light of policy orientations toward deinstitutionalisation and “successful ageing,” the project will investigate the role of social context in the disablement process. Specifically, it will explore how social relations and networks relate to inequalities in disability. By integrating macro- and micro-level perspectives, the project will advance understanding of how institutional settings shape and interact with inequalities in social resources and disability in later life.
Dr. Aušra Maslauskaitė, a researcher at the VDU V. Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute and professor at the VDU Faculty of Social Sciences, is supervising the research. The postdoctoral fellowship is scheduled to conclude in December 2027.
This postdoctoral fellowship is funded by the V. Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute’s project, “Strengthening the R&D Activities of the Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (SOCMTEP) 2023–2027”. This project is funded by the Lithuanian Science Council and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Lithuania (agreement no. S-A-UEI-23-13, 27 December 2023). The project programme is the “University Excellence Initiative” (Order No. V-665 of the Lithuanian Science Council).
