Women's Economic Role in Russia Essay

Due to economic necessity, women’s employment increased during the Great Depression, in part because the jobs from which they have been excluded, such as those in heavy industry, were most often in the areas of the economy hardest hit by the collapse. At the time, many people saw the differential between female and male employment as a major cause of male unemployment. “Simply fire all the women, who shouldn’t be working anyway, and hire the [unemployed] men,” Norman Cousins wrote in 1939, summarizing this simplistic argument. “Presto! No unemployment. No relief rolls. No depression” (Kessler-Harris 256). That lack of open-mindedness ignores the basic reality that it did not matter how desperate men were for a job, most of them would never

While family structure in the Soviet Union did change significantly during the first two decades of Communist government following the social revolution, there were also many ways in which it did not change, and some ways in which there was a return to traditional family structure during this time. Although there were changes to marriage and divorce laws, the role of women in the workplace, and the social ideas of male and female roles, inequality was still a significant issue. The attempts to create a new model of family life throughout the 1920s and 1930s, without traditional boundaries but with respect for individual rights, was unsuccessful in many ways, as women were still viewed as responsible for household duties and for raising children while men had much more sexual freedom than women. The early 1920s and the revolutionary concepts and laws which it introduced resulted in social disorder, with marriage breakdown, homelessness and poverty leading to a backlash against the changes in gender roles. Rather than blaming the lack of social services, many claimed that women needed to return to traditional roles and supply stability to the family, rather than considering the nation’s economic situation and the lack of social services as being the central issue.

Though the number of working women rose considerably in the last couple of years, but women are still much underpaid then their male counterparts. The United Nations recently published that for every dollar earned by men, women earned 70-90 cents globally. Statistics Canada also found that women workers in Canada earn an average of 66.7 cents for every dollar a man earns (Amber). Over the past couple of years, the gap has been documented to be increasing. In 2009, women use to earn 74.4 cents for every dollar a man earned, which reduced to 72-73.6 cents in 2011 (Evans). The American Association of University Women released a study that showed even when men and women attend the same kind of college, pick the same major and accept the same kind of job, on average, the woman earns 82 cents to every dollar that a man earns (Coleman). There is not even a single country where the average wages of women are more than men. This was proven by a study on the ratio of female to male earnings in European and non-European countries, conducted by the United Nation Statistics Division. It was found that the reason for these gender inequalities were associated with traditions and stereotypes which influence the education, professions and career paths women and men choose, and “often lead to part-time work and career breaks, mainly for women” (“The World’s”).

In the 21st Century the number of women enrolling in higher education institutions is surpassing the numbers of men enrolled. The graduation rates of women from high school and higher education are most often higher than for men. The number of women graduates from most professional occupations, including higher paying medicine, law and business, will exceed the number of men graduates in the near future. In numerous occupational areas with a majority of women graduates, salaries already surpass salaries in occupational areas with a majority of men graduates.

In today’s job market one prominent correlate for attaining professional careers is attaining a higher education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics from 2012, 88% of all males between the ages of 20-64 who earn at least a bachelor’s degree, are able to obtain a job, compared to women ages 20-64, where only 81% of women are able to obtain jobs (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). This statistic specifically shows how women as a whole are actually getting more college degrees

Press, T. C. (2013, June 26). More women than men have post-secondary education. CBCNews Canada .

how the war changed how women were perceived in Russian society and also the challenges

During the long nineteenth century, political revolutions, industrialization, and European imperialism resulted in dramatic changes in the role of women in Western Europe and Eastern Asia. As industrialization spread in Western Europe, women were no longer able to fulfill their dual role as a mother and a worker. After the introduction of industrialization, laborious tasks were moved from the household to factories and women were forced to choose either the life of a mother or the life of a worker. Women who chose to leave their households were subjected to harsh conditions, low wages, and long hours. The majority of married and middle-class women were confined to the home, and deprived of an education and civil rights. Unlike the

Furthermore, education is not at the root of the gap, women enroll in college more than men do; today, 45% of young women register in college compared to 38% of young men. Thus, between a man and a woman from the same job,

Even if you provide women with more schooling the median earnings for men will still be higher than women’s median earnings (Hill). In fact the biggest wage gap happens to be between women with education under their belts. In fact, the level of education that possess the biggest wage gap is a bachelor’s degree (Hill). Women with a bachelor’s degree only make a fraction of what men with the same degree make, 71.4% to be exact (Adams). Making the wage gap between men and women with bachelor’s degree an enormous 28.6% (Adams).

According to Ericsson, after the government embraced an industrial revolution in the 1970s and 80s, women began to enter the labor force. Women had the opportunity to move to city and went to college in order to obtain a college. They advanced rapidly from industrial jobs to clerical jobs and then professional jobs ( Ericsson, The end of men).

Barbara Evans Clements, a retired professor of History from the University of Akron, and author of Bolshevik Feminist: The Life of Aleksandra Kollontai (1979), Daughters of Revolution: A History of Women in the USSR (1994), and Bolshevik Women (1997), wrote the article “Working-Class and Peasant Women in the Russian Revolution, 1917-1923” in 1982 to address a topic that she believed was lacking in scholarship. This topic, according to Clements was in-depth study into the experiences of peasant and working-class women in Russian history during 1917-1923. Clements’s argues that by further study into the experiences of peasant and working-class women of the time, scholarship can better address the “paradox, in which lavish promises” presented

     Gender roles in Russia have dramatically changed since the fall of the former Soviet Union and the fall of communism. It is hard to look directly at the constitution of Russia seeing as though the drafting and redrafting of their constitution is still underway. However, looking at the constitution of the former Soviet Union, you can see it is clearly stated that: “Women and men have equal rights.” It is very clear that in the Soviet Union they were trying to make it so that women and men were equal. It is still clear today that those same basic ideals are present in Russia. Women are clearly more equal in their country than in ours. In the workforce as well as in the home, women

The changes occurring in the workplace present several sub-trends. One of the most significant is that women are returning to it in large numbers. I use the term returning rather than entering because women comprised a major factor in the workforce during World War II, but was forced out by men returning from the war. Jamieson and O'Mara (1991) project that approximately 50% of the workforce will be comprised of women by the year 2000. Wives came to the rescue of the family in the 1970s and 1980s. Even though male earnings dropped substantially for all but the top 20% of male workers, real household incomes fell only marginally for the bottom 60%, and increased for the top 40%. One third of this increase was a result of a rise in female real annual earnings; however, two-thirds was due to women working more hours per year. Unfortunately, most income earners in the family are now working as many hours as they can. The reentrance of women into the workforce occurred during the transition from the industrial to the information age.

When we hear the term Russian culture many Americans tend to have negative thoughts like the cold war, their government ruling with an iron hand, and the Red Scare. These thoughts do not do the justice to the Russian people or to their long history as a people dating back to INSERT DATE. One of the major themes throughout Russian history and this course is the idea that the Russian people value intangible things more than the tangible. The Russian people have a long rich heritage, they are deep in there Christian faith, and they pride themselves on hospitality and value there community, families, and fellow Russian people. They have learned how to sacrifice from the constant invasions and being forced farther and