Emigrants: “excluded” or the new social agents?

Abstract

The question is raised whether social processes in Lithuania brought about by global migration could be analyzed through the prism of the new social phenomenon, named precariat? Based on the previous publications and a representative survey of the Lithuanian population, the authors show how people under migration are shaped as a separate social group, carrying the features, attributed to this new phenomenon. Being the main feature, insecurity is taken as the key concept in an empirical data analysis. Three levels of insecurity analysis are proposed, namely, the perspectives of “push” factors, social meanings in the country of origin and challenges in the country of destination. R. Hill’s model as well as the ideas of A. H. Richmond, J. Trost, R. S. Parrenas, V. L. Bengtson, R. Milardo and B. Wellman serve as the theoretical background for a sociological analysis of the resources and repertoires of coping with insecurity.