A shift to libertarian paternalism in old‐age income security: Discourses on pension privatization reforms in Lithuania 2016–2018.

This study uses news media discourse analysis to investigate the highly contentious process of pension privatization retrenchment in Lithuania. In 2016, Lithuania began debating reforms on restructuring its poorly performing "second pillar" pension scheme – statutory funded individually defined contribution plans managed by the private sector. Pension reform is here conceptualized as a process of discursive contestation of the orthodox neoliberal consensus that prevailed in designing and introducing a private pension system in the early 2000s. By 2018, when a new Law on Pensions institutionalized a subsidized "nudge‐type" private retirement saving scheme, this process was legitimized by a newly prominent libertarian paternalistic ideology. Impacts of the discursive framing of pension reforms on their outcomes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]