QUALITY Of LIfE Of THE POPULATION Of LITHUANIA : THE CONCEPT , DEvELOPMENT AND PROSPECTS

The article presents a thorough explanation of the concepts defining the well-being of life and proposes, on the basis of various authors’ research and trials, a generalised and complex understanding of the quality of life and a systemic concept of the quality of life. The article discusses the integrated indicators of the quality of life as used by international scientific and consulting institutions, methodologies and the taken measurements of the quality of life, presents international comparisons of indicators of the quality of life. On the basis of the system of indicators of the quality of life as offered by the authors, a change in the well-being of life of the Lithuanian population and its quality during the period of functioning of the market is analysed, and the principal positive and negative factors which affected the quality of life of the population in the period of 2000-2008 are identified.


Introduction
On the basis of the European economic model, which lithuania seeks to implement, a country must create and develop a competitive economy ensuring the wellbeing of the population.The country's competitiveness is determined not only by the effort of all economic sectors, enterprises and the state to seek the growth of profit and the economy, but also the ability to ensure the quality of life for specific social groups of the Lithuanian population.
the research conducted in lithuania in the field of economy is focused on the securing of a fast economic growth, macroeconomic stability, achievement of the development and profitability of the banking and business sectors, whereas research of the social and economic development, the well-being and quality of life of the population was not given sufficient attention during the period of formation of the market economy.The well-being of life of the population was not a priority object of research in Lithuania.In part, this may be accounted for by the fact that at the beginning of market reforms, results in this field were modest, and the issues of wellbeing and quality of life were just emerging, hence it seemed that no tangible object of research existed.However, almost in two decades since the re-establishment of the Independence, a functioning market economy has been created in lithuania with all the institutional framework typical of it, lithuania has acceded to the Eu, has joined the WTO and the NATO.All these important to the country events have essentially changed the standard and quality of life of the population, which has in turn laid down the ground for the discussion and analysis of the issues related to this field.
the quality of life of the population may be claimed to be the most important and the main indicator of the efficiency of the management of a country's economy.Therefore, it is expedient to answer the questions what constitutes the essence and content of the quality of life of the population, what lithuania's ranking according to the indicators of the quality of life among other world countries is.

Conception of the Quality of Life of the Population
under conditions of the market economy, it is important to identify two elements of such a continually changing field as the well-being of the population.On the one hand, there are the social and economic relations which are established countrywide, namely, the living conditions of the population, the standard of living, the way of living, the quality of life; on the other, there is the social and economic situation of the population, namely, the current condition of social groups, families, genders, individuals.
In this context of highly complex scientific research of the economic behaviour of an individual and the society, a matter of considerable importance is the concepts employed, which are not yet firmly established in the lithuanian terminology and are interpreted in a varied and different manner in other countries as well: the standard of living, the way of living and style of life, the quality of life, the quality of human resources.All these concepts reflect elements of the well-being of life, but they are not identical.
the standard of living means the totality of conditions of human activities in the field of consumption, which is described by the degree of the development of people's needs and the way of satisfying them.The basis for this totality is a variety of a person's needs, which are formed and brought into being in the field of consumption.In this case, a matter of relevance is not only the degree of satisfaction of those needs, but also the manner in which they are satisfied.The standard of living can be claimed to be the totality of material goods and services at the disposal of an individual, a family or a social group.
the way of living defines specific forms of human activities in all spheres of public life -the labour market, consumption, human reproduction, governance and politics.The way of living is a specific totality of various activity types (social and economic activity) and forms of separate social groups, which is formed under the influence of cultural traditions, ethnic be-longing, place of residence and origin.(In its turn, the style of life implies everyday peculiarities of conduct of the social groups, which reflect their individual taste, aesthetic, sports and other inclinations and distinguish one type of people from the others.) the way of living is measured by means of the indicators, which show a specific type of activity and take into account the expediency of this activity (the aim and meaningfulness of the activity), its intensity and direction (interests).The basis of the way of living is clearly people's needs.
In foreign countries in the 1960s, the concept of the quality of life was formed in an attempt to determine the link between the traditional material interests and the newly arising needs as well as economic opportunities.
the quality of life (QOL) is a concept describing the essential living conditions of the population, which define the degree of each person's human dignity and personal freedom.The quality of life is not identical to the standard of living, because various income and consumption indicators constitute just one of a number of elements of the quality of life.
the concept of the quality of life represents a wider -holistic world-view, which proposes to measure the well-being of the population not by means of the standard of living but by means of the indicator of the quality of life; which on the contrary to the individualistic paradigm reflects not only the economic -economic cycle and and economic growth, but also the aspects of education, health care, social justice, combating poverty -"without which the West wouldn't have been able to create the hu-man and social capital of high quality and to reach the heights of national competitive abilities" (P.Gylys, 2008).
Where the standard of living is the degree and manner of the satisfaction of material needs, the quality of life is the satisfaction of not only economic needs, but also non-economic ones, which include health condition, personal security, culture, level of education.Therefore, the quality of life is a much wider concept than the standard of living.
the quality of life is understood as the degree of well-being felt both individually and publicly.The understanding of the well-being of life covers two areas: physical and psychological.The physical element comprises the key needs of a human organism: survival and protection against environmental factors; the psychological element comprises a person's positive or negative emotional condition.
On the basis of research of various authors and the attempts to define the essence and content of the quality of life, the authors propose a generalised complex understanding of the quality of life.
• The quality of life is a concept, which reflects the degree of satisfaction with the demographic and health as well as healthy environment, material, cultural and spiritual needs, which is measured at the macrolevel (countrywide) and the microlevel (from a specific individual's perspective).• the authors of this article underline that an analysis of the quality of life of the population must take into consideration a person's need to bring into being his creative abilities, his potential and self-expression.
• We would also like to stress our understanding of the quality of life, which differs from a widely spread consumer approach based on the model of a person as a universal consumer.A person is not only a consumer of goods and services, but also a creator, not only of those goods and services, but also of his own life and personality.• the authors offer a systemic concept of the quality of life.the quality of life of the population is an integrated notion, which describes, in a comprehensive manner, the health and ecological, economic and material as well as spiritual development of the society.the notion of the quality of life is particularly broad and all-inclusive and it is difficult to define it not only by some single indicator, but also by a system of indicators.The more intensive are the processes of internationalisation and globalisation, the more complicated this notion becoms.Each person can give his own meaningful shade to the concept of the quality of life, though in science the quality of life is a concept expressed in and measured by specific indicators and relating to the well-being of the population in a specific country.In order to evaluate the status of the quality of life of the population, one of the principal tasks is to create a system of indicators of the quality of life.
Proceeding from the systemic concept of the quality of life as presented by the authors it becomes possible to evaluate and measure the quality of life by means of creation and use of a system of indicators of the quality of life.The body of the indicators of the quality of life consists of three main groups.

The first group of indicators of the quality of life covers a person's health
indicators and demographics, namely, the average life expectancy, birth and mortality rates, population reproduction indicators (fertility rates, number of children), marital status, extent of emigration of the population.It may also include such additional indicators as sickness rates, indicators of disability, family stability, number of marriages, etc.
The second group of indicators of the quality of life includes indicators of the standard of living of the population.Consumption resources, as the result of production, are the goods and services intended for consumption, they are the source of the well-being of life consisting of a consumption share of GDP (70-90 per cent of GDP). the level and structure of the real consumption are determined by the degree of affordability of goods and services for separate social groups and strata of the society, which in turn depends on the earnings and level of income of the population, on income differentiation (distribution), also on savings, real property, etc.
The quality of life as the field of human activity, which is associated with the satisfaction of material and spiritual needs depends on the level of the development and growth of country's economy and also has its own impact on the economic development by providing impetus for the economic growth.
The third element showing the quality of life is the system of indicators of education, culture, moral and spiritual values.
Culture is among the main concepts not only of the society (sociology), but also of economics.Culture is understood worldwide as an economic notion.No morality can exist without culture.A poor morality determines a "poor", that is, inefficient, economy.Firstly, an educated, highlycultured and highly-professional person possesses at his disposal qualitative "unpalpable" resources, such as knowledge, competence, intellect, expertise, high-level spiritual and moral values, which are more important in a knowledge-based economy than material resources; secondly, such a person also creates a high-quality product (e.g., innovations), ensures a better work productivity, makes a larger contribution to the GDP and creates a higher quality of life.
Society's culture covers two types of elements -non-material, such as convictions, ideas and values, which constitute the content of a culture, and material, that is, objects or technologies, which mate-rialise this cultural content (A.Giddens, 2004).The basis of all cultures is made up of the ideas defining what is of importance for a society, what is valuable and desirable.These ideas are the values which provide a meaning and direction to people: "In which direction to live", "What is the meaning of life".
It is particularly difficult to express the third element of the quality of life by means of quantitative indicators, however, it is partially possible to do this with the help of the material element of culture.
the authors would like to stress that in the analysis of the quality of life of the population, one may not ignore another element of high relevance, namely, gender equality.Much attention has recently been paid in the European union Member States to gender equality, which is recognised as one of the most efficient tools of raising the quality of life of the population.Analy- sis from the gender perspective helps, on the one hand, to improve the efficiency of distribution of a state's expenditure and to achieve better macroeconomic results and, on the other, allows to meet the needs of the specific groups of the society in a better way, to improve the quality of their life.Incorporation of the gender element and instruments of implementation of gender equality are the new methods and innovative social technologies, which are widely used worldwide and within the European union to raise the quality of life and are actively applied in Lithuania as well.
Nowadays the approach to gender problems is becoming an indicator of an individual's and the whole country's wellbeing, culture and civilisation.
Human Development Index (HDI), which has been used by the united Nations since 1990 is considered to be one of the integrated indicators of the quality of life..The constituent parts of the index are as follows: average life expectancy at birth of the population, which describes population health; level of education, which covers literacy rates and the gross enrolment ratio in education; material well-being, which is measured by GDP per capita according to the purchasing power parity.In therefore, international comparisons of the quality of life reveal that Lithuania has a sufficiently high ranking among the countries of the world -Lithuania is among the first one third of the countries according to the Human Development Index.Our country is distinguished by a particularly high literacy rate of the population, enrolment in education ratio and an excellent Gender-related Development Index.However, according to a more detailed characterisation of the quality of life -the Quality-of-Life Index -Lithuania is still below the medium level.
the concept of the quality of life of the population and its systemic concept (which means a possibility to measure this complex phenomenon and analyse on the basis of measurements) allow to shape for the future an outline of an efficient programme, which would be focused on the overcoming of the negative tendencies and positive transformation of the country population's content of the quality of life.

General Tendencies of the Development of the Quality of Life of Lithuania's Population
as changes in the main indicators demonstrating the quality of life in the period of 2000-2008 show (Annex 1), lithuania has achieved good results in the field of the well-being of life upon accession to the EU: GDP was rapidly growing, employment rates conformed to the requirements of the lisbon Strategy, earnings, income and savings of the population were increasing, the loan volume was growing due to acceptable interest rates, increase in consumption and provision with housing, vehicles and personal computers was impressive, growth of consumption prices conformed to (and following accession to the EU slightly exceeded) the Maastricht criterion.
However, in the context of the 2008 global crisis a breakdown occurred in the favourable tendencies of indicators of the quality of life: the country began to face the threat of growing unemployment, a decrease in earnings and income of the population, and also the danger of a fall in the level of consumption, which also has a negative impact on the prospects for the coming period of 2009-2010.
a system of the indicators describing the quality of life has permitted a complex determination of changes in the well-being and quality of life of the lithuanian population during the period of the functioning of the market and the identification of the key positive and negative factors, which influenced the quality of life of the population in 2000-2008.
the positive factors, which have recently particularly promoted the growth of the quality of life of the lithuanian population are the following: • rapid economic growth; • increasing employment and decreasing unemployment rates; • fast growth of earnings and income of the population; • fast growth of savings of the population and bank loans; • increase of consumption; • development of the real property market -housing construction, fast growth of construction of private houses.the quality of life of the population in Lithuania has been negatively influenced by: • worsening demographics and the growing extent of emigration; • worsening indicators of population health; • models of hypertrophied consumer behaviour and a decline of culture, moral and ethical as well as spiritual values.
Enrichment of the population (growing earnings, savings and consumption) does not necessarily guarantee the growth of the quality of life.It is possible to claim that opposite processes are taking place: material well-being is growing at the expense of the quality of life owing to a person's huge effort while working under the conditions of fierce competition and frequently even at several workplaces (which is still forbidded by our laws) as well as overtime at the expense of health.On the one hand, immense work effort in our poor country is simply a necessity, the only condition of earning and surviving, although, on the other, when material well-being and money become the sole goal prevailing over personality development, family values, and such a massive effort is directed solely towards profit making, a person's personality is being destroyed, which results in the detrimental impact on the country's economy as well.
the negative tendencies of demographics are also a consequence of poor-quality life.Intensive work to achieve material well-being means that no time is left for rest, less care is taken of health, family creation is no longer a fundamental value.A typical form of pastime is frequently "heavy weekend drinking".Young people are searching for a full-fledged life abroad, which aggravates the ageing of the country's population and the relative mortality, because it is those who are the strongest and most capable of initiative-taking that emigrate.In this case, a different problem arises, namely, a disintegration of the family stability, because people become separated from their children and, other family members.
Irrespective of the growth of all macroeconomic indicators, demographics fails to improve: the average life expectancy of males has shortened by as much as 2.7 years in 2007 since 2000, when it was the longest, that of females -by 0.7 year.Mortality rates are the highest since 1950 (the period when the destroyed farms were being restored, the population was exhausted after the war, the due health care was not ensured).Surprisingly, in Lithuania, as opposed to the common tendency in the majority of countries worldwide, life expectancy is decreasing in the presence of a rapidly growing economic welfare.
there are many countries worldwide living conditions whereof are considerably worse than those in lithuania, however there is no deep depression in the society to place any of those countries on the first place of the list according to the number of committed suicides.Simply enough, societies of other countries adhere to the norms and principles of morality, which may not be violated under any circumstances, they preserve their eternal values.

Material Well-Being of the Population of Lithuania
Being one of the major macroeconomic indicators, the Gross Domestic Product defines the level of economic well-being of a country and enables to evaluate the efficiency of the economic policy.
During the period of Lithuania's transition to the market economy, in the years 1990-1996, a sharp decline in the GDP was as high as 44 %, in 1995, Lithuania's economy started to recover slowly and continued to grow consistently after the recession caused by the economic crisis in Russia in 1999.Before accession the EU, lithuania was among the most dynamically developing countries in Europe and the world: in 2003, the GDP growth rate was 10. lithuania's integration into the Eu has expanded foreign market sales and created preconditions for the recovery of foreign trade and the growth of foreign investment, which helped to reduce the economic and social disparities between lithuania and more developed EU Members States.
to determine the level of the economic development of a country and to make a comparison, the GDP per capita recalculated on the basis of the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is often used.Prior to lithuania's accession to the Eu, the country's GDP per capita was one-third of the EU average.In recent years, the indicators have gone up significantly, showing a positive trend, however, a comparative report indicates that Lithuania is still greatly lagging behind the other EU Member States in terms of GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Standards, and is only ahead of Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and latvia (in 2008, lithuania's GDP per capita amounted to 60.6, compared to the EU27=100, in 2000, this indicator amounted to 39.4) (Eurostat, 2008).According to foreign experts, the new EU Member States are simultaneously trying to achieve two quite opposite goals -to catch up with the Western neighbours in terms of standards of living and to comply with the criteria for the introduction of the Euro.Lithuania, along with the other Baltic States, is still halfway reaching the average Western European standard of living.
However, the comparison of general economic indicators is not nearly enough to establish the level of well-being of a country and its social achievements.For instance, Mexico surpasses Lithuania in terms of GDP per capita, however, in terms of the majority of social indicators (education, health protection and housing), it falls behind significantly.The standard of living is determined not only by gross income or other economic indicators but also by a country's social security system, a level of education and culture as well as human rights.
Economic growth expressed in GDP cannot be identified with the sustainable improvement of the quality of life.To reach a new level of sustainable economy, the creation of goods and services should be aimed at securing the well-being of the population and not at the stable increase of the amount of money.Well-being is determined by the social and environmental rather than financial factors.
Income of the population.In recent years, with the stable growth of the employment rates (employment rate in Lithuania had been rising consistently: from 57. as evidenced by the changes in the income of the population of lithuania, after the re-establishment of independence, the income was growing consistently and in 2000-2008, the disposable income per capita increased more than twice and amounted to ltl 987 per month.In 2008, the average disposable income of urban population was ltl 1074 per household member per month, for rural population -LTL 811.The fastest income growth was recorded in 2007: compared to the previous year, the disposable income of the population increased by 26.2 %. However, the composition of the population's income by sources reflects a negative demographic and labour market situation in the country: the situation on the labour market has created a stratum of people living on social allowances (5 % of the population live on social benefits, the majority of them living in rural areas), old age pensions are the main source of income for almost one-third of households ((27.2 %), in rural areas the number is as high as 36.2%).The pensions are still considerably smaller than the EU average.As many as 7 % of single parent households live on income regularly received from other households, mainly alimony.
During the years 2000-2008, personal deposits increased by 4.3 times, and comparing 2008 to 1993, by as much as 43 times.However, the analysis of the changes in the amount of personal loans granted and personal deposits in banks (Figure 2) reveals that since 2002 the growth of personal loans started to exceed substantially the growth of deposits, i.e. it might be presumed that consumption considerably exceeded the income earned and yet was still growing rapidly.The amount of loans, constantly growing since 2001, only started to fall towards the end of 2008.Such high personal loan growth rates are an indication of not only an economic situation that promotes borrowing and attractive interest rates but also of growing consumer-oriented needs of the society.
Measuring well-being of the population in a consumer society reveals certain paradoxes: increasing life satisfaction is not directly proportionate to growing income, i.e. material well-being by itself fails to make a person happy.The needs of the population and their attitudes in most cases also depend on a country's history, economic development, level of education and culture.It has to be noted that the importance of income for individual well-being varies in accordance with depending on a person's marital status or his personal health: the same income may represent a totally different level of well-being to different people.Consumption.The team administrative economy of the Soviet period was able to satisfy only the basic needs.The concept of "deficit" goods and difficulties related to their acquisition was a key difference from the Western markets and Western goods, in particular those that were highly desirable.Z. Bauman states that one of the major differences between the communist regime and Western consumer capitalism was the lack of shopping opportunities.According to the scholar, the majority of modern society members perceive their personal freedom as consumer freedom, with all its acceptable and not quite acceptable attributes (Bauman, 1988).Having freed the "dream" of free consumption, shopping also became an opportunity for people to demonstrate their purchasing power in exclusive boutiques and big shopping centres.
In the same context, consumption in Lithuania has soared in recent years: in 2000, household consumption expenditure accounted for 64 % of the GDP and in 2008, it accounted for 67 %.Average consumption expenditure per family member in 2008 increased almost twice, as compared to 2000, and amounted to ltl 749 per month.
Changes in the standards of living are revealed by the composition of consumption expenditure and one of the key indicators here, defining the standard of living in a country, is expenditure on foodstuffs: the smaller the comparative weight of expenditure on foodstuffs, the higher the standard of living in a country.
as far as consumption is concerned, a clear breakthrough can be observed in Lithuania: at the beginning of market reforms in 1996 the expenditure on foodstuffs amounted to 55 %, whereas in 2007 -only 33 %, i.e. 1.7 times less.A clear tendency throughout the period of market economy is the decreasing comparative weight of the expenditure on foodstuffs (Table 2).However, in highly developed countries, e.g. the uSa and the old Eu Member States, the expenditure on foodstuffs accounts for One positive sign is the growing expenditure on leisure and culture: from 3.8 % in 2000 to 6.2 in 2008; on clothing and footwear: from 6.8 % to 9.3 % respectively; on furnishing: from 4.2 % to 6.2 %; on transport: from 7.6 % to 11.0 %; on communications: from 3.6 % to 5.2 %.However, by far the biggest part of the expenditure goes towards home upkeep (rent, electricity, gas, heating, water and utilities), even recently there has also been an increase in the ownership of information and communication technology (ICT) tools: computers and Internet access are spreading in households (Figure 4).According to the household study, 48 % of households had personal computers in 2008, of which 54 % in urban areas and 34 % in rural areas.47 % of all households used the Internet at home in 2008.Internet access was available at 53 % of homes in urban areas and one in three households in rural areas (33 %).
Home ownership.Seeking better quality of life lithuania has recently been developing according to a clearly European model.So it is only natural that price differentiation is becoming the main tendency on the real estate market, based on home and residential area quality valuation.All market participants, both buyers and sellers, are returning to the traditional aspects of home valuation: location, natural surrounding, fast connection possibilities, architectural solutions and building materials used to build the home, family-friendly environment with local amenities etc.
there is a transition from quantity to quality.During the rapid economic growth in lithuania in recent years the society has satisfied its basic needs and acquired extensive experience by observing the level of the quality of life in theEuropean countries.the new perception of quality as well as

S o u r c e : Department of Statistics under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania
new opportunities prompted many people to "migrate" from apartment blocks to private houses.???An increase in the share of the newly developed property up to 10 % of the lithuanian housing fund over the last four years proves the tendency.The quality of life in terms of housing for most people means the freedom to choose a home that would enable to lead a chosen way of life.
New property development industry has been constantly growing in lithuania since 2001.Favourable mortgage conditions and the natural need of people to create well-being by owning real estate called forth a strong demand for newly developed properties.Lithuania is the leader among the Baltic States in terms of the number of new private houses .
Living premises in individual houses amounted to 46 %.At the end of 2007, the housing fund consisted of 1 305.1 thousand apartments, i.e. 388 apartments per 1000 population.The average size of an apartment was 62.1 m², 58.2 m² -in urban areas and 70.1 m² -in rural areas.On average there were 24.4 m² of residential useful floor space per capita, 23.2 m²-in urban areas and 26.8 m² -in rural areas.All the above figures point to a relatively high level of well-being.
In the last 50 years the proportion between urban and rural population has changed significantly.Lithuania is no longer a rural country -two-thirds of its population now live in cities. living conditions in urban and rural areas of lithuania (employment, home amenities, availability of resources, education opportunities and access to cultural activities), moving to cities is considered to be a positive tendency, however, migration from rural to urban areas should not be encouraged.Instead, living conditions in rural areas should be improved, with emphasis on the creation of healthy, beautiful and comfortable environment to live in. .

S o u r c e : Department of Statistics under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania
the development tendencies of material well-being reveal a visible growth in the standards of living of the population in Lithuania.Its accession to the EU was a prerequisite for the positive changes in terms of the well-being of the population, the ensurance at the same time, however, of the compliance with the Maastricht criteria, i.e. curbing the inflation and budget deficit within the allowed limits, is in a way limiting the possibilities of the growth of the standards of living.

Demography and Health of the Population
Demography. after the re-establishment of independence, the demographic development of the population of lithuania changed in essence.Since the beginning of the last decade, the changes in demographic processes such as birth rate, death rate, family planning and migration have all been negative and resulted in the decreasing number of people, depopulation and rapid aging of the population.The population numbers started decreasing in 1992.At the beginning of 2009, the number of population of Lithuanian was 3 346 thousand people, that is 347.7 thousand less than 18 years ago.
the number of the population started to decrease primarily due to emigration, from 1994, due to natural processes, i.e. due to mortality rates being higher than birth rates.In 1995, the natural increase reached a critical line, i.e. the birth rate became lower than what is required for the process of reproduction and it has been falling since then.The country is depopulating rapidly and the generation of children cannot replace the generation of parents.the indicators of negative demographic tendencies in recent years point to the fact that the ageing of the Lithuanian society (as well as that of the whole Europe) in the coming decades will have significant influence on the economic growth and will increase the imminent economic difficulties.On the other hand, ageing of the population is perceived as a positive social change.Longer life expectancy is an indicator of quality and healthy lifestyles, one of the most important indicators of a country's development level and a great achievement of humanity.
The average expected lifespan of the population in lithuania in 2008 dropped by 2.7 years for men and 0.7 years for women and was 64.9 and 77.2 respectively.In the last five decades, the proportion of people over 60 years of age of the total population increased by two-thirds: from 12 % in 1959 to 20 % in 2003, and the proportion of children under 14 years of age decreased by one-third (from 27 % to 18 %).at present, there are more people who are 60 years of age and older than children in Lithuania.However, Lithuania is still not among the top 20 of the demographically oldest countries in the world.
Periods of the demographic development, when the age composition of the population changes rapidly (ages), require timely and well-considered adaptation actions in almost all spheres of life.The new ratio of young people to the elderly population forces to review and adapt to the new circumstances the possibilities of participation in the labour market, social guarantees, social care services, health and ecology-related measures (environment, community infrastructure, communica-tions etc.).If the State ignores the increasing number of the elderly and their special needs, it will jeopardize the well-being of this age group.lithuania like other European countries is undergoing a family crisis.the demographics of the family in lithuania in the last 10-15 years changed significantly: the number of marriages and traditional families dropped dramatically in 2000-2003.after the accession to the Eu, the number of marriages per 1000 population started to grow again (the indicator for 2008 was 7.2), although marriages are still postponed until later in life.The divorce rate has been stable in recent years with 3.3 divorces per 1000 population or 43 divorces per 100 marriages (in 2008).Based on the number of divorces (3.1) per 1000 population, lithuania is unfortunately one of the leaders in Europe.The number of cohabiting couples is increasing, as is the number of single-parent families and especially people who have never been married.
as a result, the birth rate has reached one of the lowest levels in Europe.In 15 years, the total fertility rate in lithuania dropped from 2.02 to 1.3 in 2008.Birth rates are also low in most European countries (on average 1.3 child per woman), which is far from the birth necessary rate (2.1 child per woman) to regenerate the parents' generation.
Studies show that the main reasons for not creating families or postponing them until later in life are economic: insufficient income, problems buying homes and finding employment as well as limited possibilities of providing children with suitable education.The change in the economic system after the re-establishment of lithuania's independence, a sudden drop in the standards of living in the first years of reforms, instability, changes in the socio-economic structures and relations, establishment of market economy, rise and spread of unemployment, establishment of housing market, high costs of building and selling prices of apartments -all of them had and still exercise influence on the decreasing number of marriages and births (Stankūnienė, 2007).
However, one very important factor is a change in the system of values.Marriage as a value is losing its importance among the young generation, people are avoiding commitment, putting more emphasis on self-expression and self-fulfilment through professional activity.With every young generation, cohabitation is becoming increasingly tolerated.
Emigration.One of the main reasons of decreasing population in lithuania is emigration, which grew significantly after Lithuania's accession to the EU.Considering the number of population, Lithuania was leading in terms of emigration rates in the whole EU.According to the data of the Department of Statistics, 355 thousand people left lithuania declaring their departure in 1990-2008.This number is doubled by the number of people who left without the declaration of their departure because on emigration only one out of two or one out of three people declare their departure.. the research data show that among those leaving the country are mostly young, well-educated, proactive and efficient people as well as young families.
the conclusions of the research state that the main reason for emigration is employment: almost 70 % of emigrants are leaving in search of work, 8 % of people leave to join family members who left earlier or after having married a foreigner, 13 % of people go to study (it has to be noted that the number of people studying abroad is constantly growing and in 2001-2007, increased from 4 % to 13 %).
It is commonly assumed that emigration is determined by the predominantly economic factors: differences in salaries and standards of living in lithuania and foreign countries.However, this idea must be questioned.Economic reasons for emigration are overestimated.The amount of earnings is not the only criterion determining people's choices on the labour market (to work or not to work, in lithuania or abroad) also because each year more investments go into the creation of comfortable and safe working environment.The quality of workplace also covers such aspects as professional development opportunities, possibilities of putting to use the acquired knowledge and skills, creation of added value, healthy and safe working environment and guaranteed solid income.according to the survey of employed people, only 68 % of them are content with their workplace (in the old Eu Member States -85 %).Emigration is largely a response to poor quality of workplaces.therefore, the reasons for emigration from Lithuania are rather social than economic.
The Department of Statistics forecasts that in 2030 only 3.12 million people will live in Lithuania, i.e. the population will further decrease by 9 %.This will inevitably affect the labour market-with a decreasing supply of workforce and the number of working-age population, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain the health and social security systems, which are financed from taxpayers money.at the same time, the need for such services will grow with an increasing number of the ageing population.

Decline of Culture, Moral and Spiritual Values
unlike the economy and standards of living, where over the 20 years of its independence Lithuania has made significant improvements, considerable ambiguity can be observed in culture and the system of moral, ethical and spiritual values.The total propaganda of the material and financial aspect in the official doctrine of global economy in the 20 th -21 st centuries has triggered a sharp decline of culture and moral, ethical and spiritual values across the world.It became obvious that models of absolutization of private capital are incompatible with the ideas of social justice, they destroy traditional principles of ethics and morality, turn a human being into a money slave and degrade personality.All of the above became evident in Lithuania as well.
Present global economic crisis is considered by many prominent world economists (Paul Krugman, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics and professor at Princeton University (USA); Klaus Schwab, a professor at the university of Geneva and founder of the World Economic Forum in Davos; Joseph Stiglitz, the winner of the Nobel Prize 2001, former Vice President of the World Bank and professor at Harvard University; Grzegorz Kolodko, a renowned Polish economist and others) to be a crisis which was stirred up,, first of all, "in people's minds", when a clear decline in the moral and ethical values also affected the economic behaviour and economic development.
a disfunctional system of values manifests itself through the loss of self-identification of an individual, the crisis of the family institution, devaluation of education, professional skills and culture.The accepted moral values scatter in the consciousness of an individual and society causing diffusion, i.e. the line between the good and the bad disappears.Individual pragmatism, cynicism and seeking self-benefit become widespread as consumption becomes the ultimate goal of life, leaving aside the professional growth as well as inner spiritual development.The cult of brutality and violence is spreading among the young population; aggression is viewed as something valuable, which helps to numb the feelings of compassion.Kindness, humanity, decency, intelligence, mutual assistance decline as values and lose their significance.Under such circumstances, a young person becomes disorientated, finds it difficult to understand the meaning of life and to choose his way -"the direction in life".
Psychologists, sociologists and church representatives state that negative moral and ethical principles have grown stronger in all strata of the society thus influencing the behaviour of the entire society as well as the behaviour in the family.The main reason for the growing depression, alcohol and drug addictions, increasing crime and suicide rates in lithuania is spiritual void, loss of the meaning of life and obscure moral and ethical values.This is the price for the absolutization of consumer ideology, cult of material success and loss of high ideals of the humanity.
Without culture, there is no morality in the society.Without culture, there are no highly qualified professionals.Moral values are an important criterion regulating the economy and politics.Without the basic moral principles, economic and social laws fail, instructions are not carried out and education, science and art cannot exist.Low level of culture and morals determines the growth of criminality, dooms to failure any positive efforts in economy, social life and politics.
Culture.Although in terms of the number of students lithuania has surpassed even the uSa, the statistical data from the period of 1970-2008, indicating dramatic cultural changes, confirm the revolution in the system of values of the population that took place over the period of market economy.Over the 20 years of market economy in lithuania, the number of people attending theatres and concerts has dropped by 75 %.In 2000, there were 71 listeners per 1000 population, as opposed to 44 per 1000 population in 2007.Although in terms of the proportion of people working in the sphere of culture lithuania almost conforms to the Eu average, (EU -2.4 %, Lithuania -2.5 %) [5], theatre attendance indicators, for instance are among the lowest in the Baltic States: there are 748 theatregoers per 1000 population in Estonia, 378 -in latvia and only 212 -in Lithuania.
Reading to a cultured person is both the need and pleasure as it is a way to expand his knowledge, make use of the wisdom experienced, analysed and conveyed by others.Reading, which improves the level of education, is also used as a method of improving the quality of life.The num-ber of library subscribers has dropped significantly in recent years and has reached the lowest level within the last 50 years.Obviously, this may be related to the fact that nowadays there are more opportunities to find the necessary information and read books on the Internet using virtual libraries.However, an assumption can still be made that the demand for literature has decreased.According to the research data, as much as 33.6 % of the population of lithuania in the age group of 25-64 do not read fiction, 40.6 % of the population read only 1-3 books per year.It follows that spiritual growth and improving the education level through reading is only part of the system of values of one in four people in Lithuania.
Museum attendance, however, has gone up by 48.7 % in 2007 as compared to 1995.Although this positive indicator has to attributed first of all to the increased number of foreign tourists, compared to the other Baltic States, Lithuania's indicators are well behind: Estonia has 1530 mu-seum-goers per 1000 population, latvia -1056 and Lithuania -925.
lithuania is also a leader in terms of the number of publications: books, magazines and newspapers.Among the most popular fiction published in Lithuania is American literature (amounts to 11.3 % and ranks second after lithuanian literature; Lithuanian literature accounts for 47.8 % of all the fiction published).
Nowadays there is a lot of talk about the decline of spirituality in the world.So the lack of spirituality is not specific to Lithuania alone but is characteristic of the whole world.Devaluation of the role of spiritual culture, no interest taken in high culture and shortage of basic knowledge and basic professional skills -all this is an indication of the lack of spirituality and spiritual poverty.Spiritual life has been substituted with an outward civilisation.Technology and comfort, linked to civilisation, and growing consumption may eliminate spiritual life from people's activities but cannot replace it.Spiritual emptiness encourages  The authors are deeply convinced that it is the culture of a country that determines the economy and politics and not vice versa.a low level of culture and morals will result in an ineffective economy and economic policy.A decline in the sphere of humanities (e.g.literature, arts, music) will have an inevitable impact on the economy.Therefore, it is essential to re-establish moral, ethical and spiritual values invoking culture.The key tasks in this area should be to nurture patriotic feelings -serving the homeland, sense of responsibility, spirituality and intelligence, all based on culture.
lithuania has yet to develop a comprehensive concept of cultural development.Culture is often perceived as a very narrow circle of phenomena: theatre, museums, music, literature and occasionally show business, whereas culture is an enormous, uniform phenomenon that turns people residing on a certain area into a nation.The concept of culture encompasses faith, science and education, ethical and moral norms of human and political behaviour.I It is necessary to have a high level of the awarieness of culture, cultural environment that encompasses not only national but also global cultural values for the real high culture to exist and develop.What we need is eternal values, classical arts and everything that exists in our culture eternally.Real beauty is eternal.Beauty in architecture, music, poetry, sculpture is eternal.And just like beauty, morals are eternal too -the moral commandments: not to kill, not to steal, not to lie and to respect one's parents and ancestors' traditions.The relation between beauty and morals is unquestionable.Spirituality is the key to morals.Classical principles are the driving force of education.It is alternatively opposite to mass culture and its vulgar manifestations.

Conclusions
1.The quality of life of the population is an integrated concept offering a comprehensive description of the health, ecological, economic, material as well as spiritual development of the society.The quality of life of the population is also the main indicator of the efficiency of a country's economic management.The authors offer a systemic concept of the quality of life, which enables to evaluate and measure the quality of life by means of a system of indicators of the quality of life.The totality of the indicators of the quality of life consists of the three main groups: 1) a person's health and demographics, 2) indicators of the standard of living of the population, 3) indicators of education, culture, moral and spiritual values.2. The system of the indicators describing the quality of life has enabled a complex determination of the changes in the well-being and quality of life of the population of lithuania over the period of the functioning of the market and identification of the key positive and negative factors, which affected the quality of life of the population in the period of 2000-2008.The positive factors, which have particularly enhanced the improvement of the quality of life of lithuania's residents over the recent years include a rapid economic growth, increased employment and decreased unemployment rates, the fast growth of earnings and income of the population, the fast growth of personal savings and bank loans, increase of consumption, development of the real property market, that is, housing construction, rapidly growing construction of private houses.The negative impact on the quality of life of the population of Lithuania has been exercised by the worsening demographics and the growing extent of emigration, worsening indicators of the population health, models of hypertrophied consumer behaviour and the decline of culture, moral and ethical as well as spiritual values.
3. Assessing the changes in the indicators of the quality of life of the lithianian population over the period of 1990-2008, the following patterns can be observed.First, macroeconomic indicators showed that upon the re-establishment of the independence, lithuania was making a rapid progress, at the same time it was lagging behind in terms of social indicators; second, material economic indicators (earnings, income, savings and consumption) suggest that the well-being of life of the population was improving, although demographics and health indicators were worsening, whereas the system of culture, moral and ethical values exhibited an evident decline.Therefore, material well-being in Lithuania was improving at the expense of non-material indicators of the quality of life.
4. Although in terms of education Lithuanians are among the most educated people in the Central and Eastern Europe, the statistical data from the period of 1970-2008 indicating dramatic cultural changes, confirm the decline in the system of values of the population that was taking place over the period of market economy.The authors are of the opinion that the re-establishment of culture and the system of spiritual values is the basis for the economic efficiency in Lithuania.A low level of culture and morals will result in an inefficient economy and economic policy.Therefore, to achieve an effectivet economy and sustainable economic growth one of the key goals of the present day, is the re-establishment of the full-fledged high culture focusing not only on the material values but also fostering moral, ethical and spiritual ones.the intellectual potential of a nation is able to develop and its economic efficiency and well-being increase only when the country has a solid cultural foundation.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Systemic concept of the quality of life 5 % in 2001 to 65.0 % in 2008) and the unemployment rates falling down (the highest unemployment rate after the re-establishment of independence was registered in 2001 at 17.4 % and the lowest in 2007 at 4.3 %), there was a significant increase in salaries -the main source of income of the population.During the years 2000-2008, the average monthly earnings increased almost three-fold and in 2008 reached LTL 2174.The growth of salaries accelerated after the accession to the Eu, reaching 17-20 % per year.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Changes in the amount of personal deposits and personal loans granted (%)S o u r c e : Bank of Lithuania

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Theatre and concert attendance, in thousands (on average per day) S o u r c e : Department of Statistics under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania

per cap- ita was ltl 33.2 thousand. Compared with other EU Member States accord- ing to this indicator, Lithuania is only ahead of Latvia, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.
2 % and in 2007 -8.8 %.The GDP growth rate slowed down significantly only at the end of 2008 under the influence of the global economic crisis: the GDP was LTL 111.4 billion, and rose by 3.1 % compared to 2007.In 2008, the GDP

Table 1 . Earnings and income of the population
S o u r c e : Department of Statistics under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania

Table 2 . Composition of household consumption expenditure (%) 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008*
* Provisional data.S o u r c e : Department of Statistics under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania Figure 3. Number of private vehicles / 1000 population aggression, which becomes more evident in our lives.Aggressive culture forms (TV, the media, mass events, concerts, sports, entertainment), simplified conceptions of life fill people's lives with aggression, which is dominant in all spheres of economic, social and political life.How do we fight against it and by what means?theonly way to defeat this aggression is culture.Culture is not aggressive, what is aggressive is semi-culture, lack of it.The real communication culture, knowledge culture, reading culture, economic, social and political interest culture and business culture are not aggressive; on the contrary, they encourage communication, cooperation and partnership.