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This article first appeared in Russia Profile on 21st March 2007.

 

RUSSIA - WOMEN

 

Underpaid and Underestimated

By Dmitry Polikanov, 2001 John Smith Fellow
Special to Russia Profile

Working Women in Russia Face Familiar Challenges

Years of market reforms have led to certain shifts in Russian mentality, including the issue of traditional gender roles. The process is complicated, and has both negative and positive implications for Russian women.

Compared with opinions held 15 years ago, Russians today in general have a more negative outlook towards the position of women in society. According to a survey by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), there is a general consensus that women in Russia have a more difficult life than men, an opinion widely held among women themselves. Only 4 percent of women believe that their life is easier than that of their male counterparts, while 73 percent agree it is worse. Among male respondents, only 10 percent believe women have it easier.

Recent surveys by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) expand on the reasons for this. Most people agree that life has become harder, that today it is more difficult to bring up children, to deal with household problems and to find a good job. For example, 65 percent of all Russians - and 70 percent of women - say that it is more difficult for women to find work now than it was in the early 1990s.

However, the numbers seem evenly split on whether or not it is more difficult for women to hold positions of power or leadership roles today than during the Soviet era or the early 1990s. This balance is interesting, considering that today, unlike the Soviet era, there are no gender quotas to fulfill and that upward mobility in society is not as prevalent as it was in the early 1990s.

In most industrialized countries, working women often carry the burden of the “second shift” of housework and childcare, but this situation is arguably worse in Russia due to the very low life expectancy for men coupled with high levels of alcoholism.

Despite these gloomy figures, expectations are rising. Surveys indicate that society benefits from having women in the workforce and women say that they want to work. Fifty-five percent of FOM’s female respondents agree that most Russian women would prefer to work even if they did not need the money, while 58 percent maintain that keeping up with household responsibilities does not prevent women from working at their full capacity. In both cases, over 40 percent of male respondents back the opinion of female interviewees. VTsIOM’s survey participants are even more explicit - 22 percent believe that a woman should not quit working after giving birth to a child, compared with 16 percent of interviewees asked the same question in 1990. Thirty-three percent maintain that mothers should stay home with their children until the age of three, when children are eligible to attend preschool.

Although women indicate their willingness to work, social stereotypes continue to divide occupational sectors into male and female regardless of objective human abilities. Although 51 percent of FOM respondents in a February 2005 survey argued that distinction between “male” and “female” professions is determined by social structures, while one third assumes that this is a natural, physical process, the 51 percent are not egalitarians - they easily identify the spheres where females are more “apt” than males and vice versa. Hence, although women are expected to work, they are limited to a number of areas and then restricted to certain positions.

Women are believed to be good at teaching, household maintenance, healthcare and accounting. A similar set of questions asked by the Levada Center in March 2006 brought nearly the same results - intellectual abilities of women are not called into question, but they look more natural and, allegedly, effective in education, household maintenance and art. They are seen as less effective when it comes to business, science and governance.

This coincides with present-day realities. Women make up 56 percent of public servants, but only 9 percent hold leadership positions and a meager 1.3 percent are top officials. Over 80 percent of office clerks and people holding client service jobs are female. In recent years, the highest concentrations of women employees have been found in such spheres as public health, physical culture and social security, education, trade and public food services. According to the 2006 survey of the Russian Managers Association, only about 30 of the 200 slots for Russian top managers are filled by women, and they are also concentrated mostly in the consumer goods and services industries as well as the media.

This runs counter to the perception of females who feel underestimated, as surveys indicate. Thirty-seven percent of FOM’s interviewees believe that men and women have equal opportunities to realize their talents. At the same time, women do not see objective constraints for working in sectors outside of teaching and the service industries because this is what their education enables them to do. At present, one in four working Russian women has a university diploma, compared with one in five men; women are also in the majority among all employees with secondary special and higher education. However, in some respects, education has failed Russian women. It does not perform one of its crucial functions - that of vertical social mobility. Women earn lower salaries and their career growth is slower.

Of VTsIOM’s female participants, 37 percent argue that their revenues are not related to their professional skills and qualification, compared with 31 percent of males. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) claims that during the Soviet period, female wages did not exceed 70 percent of male wages, and that in recent years the gap has widened. The differences in labor remuneration are especially large in the 20-40 age group, which is when women have to shoulder the main burden of child care and domestic responsibilities. The maximum gender gap is found in jobs that require medium qualification levels. Here female wages are only 63.6 percent of the wages received by men. Fifty-one percent of VTsIOM’s female respondents argue that men are more likely to receive a salary appropriate to the quality and quantity of their labor while 42 percent assume that the rights are equal. Moreover, the experience of Russian economic reforms shows that as soon as a sector or a profession starts to yield high income it attracts a rush of male labor.

In 1998, female employees at large-and medium-size enterprises were paid 70 percent of the wages of men, 63 percent in 2001, and 64 percent in 2003. When small enterprises are taken into account, the gap may even be higher. Small enterprises usually pay lower wages and many risks are shifted off to workers - and, most of their employees tend to be women, who are generally concentrated in the service sectors and tend to work for companies with few employees.

Experts usually indicate that 25 to 30 percent of entrepreneurs are women, but the concept of “entrepreneur” in Russia is not well formulated, and changes in the definition can strongly affect the gender structure. Entrepreneurs include employers using hired labor and possessing considerable financial resources as well as self-employed people who earn as much as they would employed by a business in the same industry. The share of employers among men is twice as high as among women, while the share of self-employed is similar among both genders, meaning men are better represented among the ranks of entrepreneurs with higher incomes.

The Russian longitudinal monitoring survey conducted by the Institute of Social Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1990-2002 allows for assessment of male and female ownership of companies where they work. The share of male owners of such companies is 20- 30 percent higher than the share of women.

In Moscow, which has the highest concentration of financial resources and stockholders in Russia, there is also a high concentration of male property owners. This is easily explained since at the start of economic reforms and during privatization, women lost opportunities to men who were heading enterprises and had easier access to privatization tools. Now women have fewer opportunities to join “wealthy” social groups other than by marriage.

Russia, like many other developed countries, demonstrates gender disparities in the workplace. The situation is not catastrophic, but there are some alarming tendencies. While women make up the bulk of workers in the economy and the public sector, their contribution is underestimated. Old gender stereotypes put females under additional stress - while expectations to put careers ahead of having a family increase, society fails to provide adequate payment and professional growth. Additionally, women are under increased pressure to have more children. This has not yet led to total frustration, but results in the underemployment of female talents and skills. From a political point of view, such a situation undermines the development of a normal business community and middle class, as many women have limited access to property ownership and feel limited in their ability become entrepreneurs.

This article first appeared in Russia Profile on 21st March 2007, reproduced on this site with permission from Dmitry Polikanov.

 





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