54
countries and their modernisation efforts. As stressed in the introduc-
tion to this book, both Portugal and Lithuania have striven to move
beyond their past, which in both cases is seen as backward, isolated, and
lacking economic development and democratic institutions. After these
countries joined the EU, they restructured some of their major institu-
tions (the labour market, the educational system, the legal system),
incorporating significant aspects of the European framework, which
these countries regard as a yardstick of modernity: this framework
encompasses principles such as those of equality between partners,
respect for diversity, and even the promotion of diversity, among others.
But we should also bear in mind that in these two countries high
employment rates for men and women were also very common in the
past, and in the Lithuanian case were even promoted by the State.
Switzerland, on the other hand, has always to some extent been wary of
the EU. Its prevailing work and care arrangements are probably closer
to those of the US, with a mix of strong individualism and family
privacy.
Conclusion
The aim of this chapter was to provide a brief contextualisation for the
three countries considered in this book – Portugal, Switzerland, and
Lithuania – over the last six decades. Along with contextualisation, we
provided a multidimensional depiction of the birth cohorts of 1950–1955
and 1975–1975 which highlights the commonalities and dissimilarities
of their generational times, normative frameworks, biographical path-
ways, and structural conditions.
Portugal, Switzerland, and Lithuania have undergone vast political,
economic, and social changes since the 1950s, when the first generation
of individuals studied across all three countries was born. However, in
the context of twentieth-century Europe, they followed very dissimilar
paths in many respects, with a long-term totalitarian right-wing regime
in Portugal, a communist regime in Soviet Lithuania, and an enduring
democracy in Switzerland. Events such as the democratic revolution in
Portugal and independence from the former Soviet Union in Lithuania
V. Ramos et al.