Two-thirds of Lithuanians do not want to live next to people with mental disabilities, about half would rather not live next to homosexuals and Muslims, and one-third next to migrants from Russia, a new survey has found.
The results of the survey were presented by the Ethnic Research Department of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences (LSMC) and the non-governmental organisation Diversity Development Group. The survey was carried out in November 2023 to investigate the attitudes of Lithuanians towards various social, ethnic, religious, and migrant groups.
According to Monika Frėjūtė-Rakauskienė, head of the Ethnic Research Department of the LSMC, with the number of migrants in Lithuania having exceeded 200,000, the survey is looking into the attitudes towards the three largest migrant groups: Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians.
Attitudes towards other groups – people with disabilities, homosexuals, people of other racial and ethnic groups, people of other than traditional Christian faith, and people who do not speak Lithuanian – were also assessed.
Unwanted neighbours
The first question asked Lithuanians which groups they did not want to have as their neighbours.
According to Frėjūtė-Rakauskienė, four groups are in the “most unfavourable position”: people with mental disabilities (65 percent), homosexuals (54 percent), Muslims (47 percent), and migrants from Russia (35 percent).
“There is a high social distance with persons who don’t speak Lithuanian (22 percent), with persons of other than traditional Christian faith (22 percent). The lower social distance is with people of other races (19 percent), people of other ethnic groups (18 percent), and the lowest is with migrants from Ukraine (12 percent),” she said.
According to the sociologist, migrants from Russia are seen as coming from the aggressor country that started the war in Ukraine. Negative attitudes are also recorded towards Belarusians, with 18 percent of the survey respondents indicating they do not want to live next to them.
According to Frėjūtė-Rakauskienė, comparing the data with 2022, the social distance with the mentioned groups is increasing. It reflects the prevailing stigma in society about mental disability.
“But the increase in negative attitudes towards homosexuals is a bit surprising because we now have Baltic Pride and people are slowly starting to talk about homosexuals publicly and discuss the problems they face,” she said.
The social distance with homosexuals in Lithuania is increasing because the civil union bill is stalling in the Seimas. At the same time, the parliament has so far failed to ratify the Istanbul Convention, the sociologist noted.
According to Frėjūtė-Rakauskienė, looking at the data from the last ten years, the groups that Lithuanians do not want to live and work alongside remain the same.
Lithuanian language desired
According to the head of the Ethnic Studies Department at the LSMC, previous studies have shown that Lithuanians were more willing to work with people from the identified groups, but “the trends here are quite surprising”.
The study shows that there is a greater reluctance to work with people who do not speak Lithuanian (34 percent) than with Muslims (33 percent). However, the greatest distance on this issue remains with people with mental disabilities (61 percent) and homosexuals (40 percent).
“This is related to the Russian war in Ukraine, the declining prestige of the Russian language in society,” Frėjūtė-Rakauskienė said.
According to her, compared to the 2022 survey, the social distance with all groups has increased, especially persons with mental disabilities (18 percent increase), homosexuals (16 percent increase), and persons who do not speak Lithuanian (11 percent increase).
Baltijos Tyrimai conducted a representative survey of 1,018 Lithuanian citizens between November 16–27, 2023.
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