Abstract
This paper reviews the articles of Lithuanian authors on social policy topic and assesses if the asset-based policy topic was ever explored. It briefly analyses the efficiency of current social security policy in Lithuania and social-economical state of inhabitants. It states that in order to reduce poverty and inequality, current social policy should be reformed, and the current income support (or income security) policy should be replaced by the asset-based policy which stresses the development of skills, knowledge and capabilities, promotes savings, investments and building of assets and gives everyone a possibility to become a capital owner. The paper presents results of a representative survey which was aimed to explore Lithuanian inhabitants’ opinion towards the new form of social policy: asset-based policy. It uncovers that vast majority of Lithuania's inhabitants would agree to the implementation of the asset-based policy, based on children's savings accounts.
Highlights
Income inequality and high poverty rate stem the evolution of society and state; they have a significant impact on health and education of residents, conditions of housing and delinquency rate
Research object is the possibility to implement the asset-based policy in Lithuania
The possibility to implement the asset-based policy in Lithuania and the possible impact of such a policy to inequality and poverty rate are not yet explored
Summary
Income inequality and high poverty rate stem the evolution of society and state; they have a significant impact on health and education of residents, conditions of housing and delinquency rate. All these policies are characterized by the fact that there is accumulation of funds in an investment account for a certain period of time (in case an account is opened to a new-born, the funds are mostly accumulated until he/she reaches majority; if an account is opened to a low-income individual, funds are mostly accumulated for 2–4 years), using support of the Government (one-time benefits or matching funds); later on, these funds can be used for a predetermined purpose: mostly for education, housing or starting a small business These proposals envisage fairly different implementation of asset-based policy, all of them focus on the same goal, i.e. to accumulate a certain amount of asset, escape from regular cycle of benefits, consumption and poverty, encourage development of personal capabilities and as a result, a better development of entire society and national economy. Methods of the research are: the analysis of scientific literature, representative survey of Lithuanian residents, comparative and logical analysis of statistical data, and graphical data representation
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