Life strategies and survival strategies are patterns of action by which individuals and households strive to maintain and improve their conditions of existence. This doctoral dissertation is the first study of life strategies in Croatia that uses qualitative methodology to research individuals and households with a wide range of sociodemographic characteristics while applying a Bourdieusian theoretical approach. The goals of the study are to identify and describe different types of life strategies in Croatia and the forms of capital, resources, and practices on which they are based, as well as to contribute to sociological thinking about the intersection of social inequalities, social development, and life strategies. The theoretical framework of the dissertation is based on Bourdieu's theory of practice and the tradition of household strategies research, especially in post-socialist countries. Life strategies are defined as a social phenomenon, which means that the patterns of practice and narratives of social agents (individuals and households) are connected to their social positions and trajectories, but also to wider social processes. The theoretical framework was upgraded with newly devised concepts (physical resources, deactivation of capital, future horizons) as well as the concepts that enable the (post)Bourdieusian research of ‘crony’ structures and neoliberal capitalism in Croatia (Petrić et al., 2022). The research methodology is based on relational epistemology, interpretive constructivist structuralism and the multiple case study approach (Bourdieu, 1990; Stake, 2005; Reed, 2008). The data was collected in 2015 through thirty semi-structured interviews, along with micro-ethnographic notes and data on individual and household capitals. Several types of analytical procedures of linking and categorization enabled the reconstruction of five types of life strategies, as well as their characteristics and subtypes. The basic types of strategies determined in this way are: 1. Life strategies of social advancement; 2. Life strategies of preserving the social position; 3. Life strategies of compensating; 4. Life strategies of getting by; and, 5. Life strategies of surviving. Life strategies of advancement are patterns of long-term improvement in living conditions based on high volumes of capital and investment levels, along with ascending careers and entrepreneurial projects. Life strategies of preserving the social position are characterized by secure incomes from salaries, but significantly lower capital volumes and investment levels than those within the strategies of advancement. Life strategies of compensating are patterns of practices by which social agents seek to compensate for the living conditions they lost due to unfavourable structural changes and the breakdown of their previous strategies. Life strategies of getting by are marked by a low amount of capital (especially devalued cultural capital), prominently discontinuous work trajectories and the instability of living conditions. The fundamental characteristic of these strategies was the reliance on (physical) resources and dispositions of ‘coping’ and ‘adaptability’, as well as the normalization of precariousness. Finally, life strategies of surviving are identified as patterns of practice aimed at survival in structurally extremely unfavourable circumstances. They were characterized by extremely low, devalued and deactivated capitals, a radical narrowing of the horizon of needs, and the primary goal of maintaining conditions of existence which enabled little more than mere physical survival. Research into life strategies in Croatia points to the existence of significant social inequalities and extremely unfavourable living conditions for some households. The longterm ‘damage’ of the post-socialist transformation is clearly visible, as well as the increase in inequality during the economic crisis, along with the emergence of the ‘new poor’ (cf. Šućur, 2014; Rubinić, 2019). According to the ways in which some households survive, Croatia can be counted among societies where a large part of the protective functions of the social security system is not provided by the state, but by the family and social solidarity networks. The results indicate that social polarization needs to be considered not only in the categories of material deprivation (in which individuals and households with survival strategies are found), but also in the spread of the phenomenon of precariousness to which many households with life strategies of compensating and getting by were especially exposed. It can be concluded that the characteristics of Croatian socio-economic development both in the mature phase of the transition and in the post-transition period continued to create challenges and structural pressures on the strategies of individuals and households. The only exceptions were agents with large amounts of capital and/or capital valuable within the ‘crony’ mechanisms of the capitalist state. Finally, the diversity of strategies and their structural circumstances identified in this dissertation points to the necessity of further reflection on the unequal development in Croatia.