32
knowledge of family boundaries, the roles of family members
(Juozeliūnienė 2015 ), and the organisation of family practices
(Mikulionienė 2014 ). Overall, the changes described have led to less tra-
ditional and more diversified understandings of family life and family
formation in Lithuania.
Overview of Social Development in the Three
Countries
In this section, we provide an overview of the indicators of social develop-
ment we believe to be indirectly connected to life trajectories and per-
sonal networks (Table 2.1).
Of the three, Portugal is the largest in terms of population, with 10.588
million inhabitants in 2011. Lithuania is the smallest, with only 3.028
million registered inhabitants in the same year. Switzerland lies in
between, with 7.912 million inhabitants. Both Portugal and Switzerland
experienced population growth in the last four decades: in these two
countries population increased by 1.907 million and 1.731 million,
respectively. Since both countries have very low or negative rates of natu-
ral growth, population growth was mainly driven by immigration and, in
the Portuguese case, also by decolonisation in the late 1970s. Conversely,
since the restoration of independence, the population of Lithuania has
been decreasing sharply: in the 2011 Census, there were 670,000 fewer
inhabitants than in 1990. This trend has been driven by demographic
processes such as ageing and emigration, mostly due to the higher cost of
living.
Moreover, there are substantial differences in living standards between
these countries (based on GDP per capita). Switzerland has the highest
standard of living (54,534 in current PPP$^2 in 2011), a figure that has
almost doubled since 1990. In 2011, GDP per capita in Portugal was
about half that of Switzerland (26,588 in current PPP$). Lithuania has
the lowest GDP per capita, even though there has been an ongoing
increase in standards of living over the last two decades: GDP per capita
was 4262 in current PPP$ in 1993, and 22,743 in current PPP$ in 2011.
V. Ramos et al.