Gender, work, and wages in the Soviet Union : a legacy of discrimination

The plight of women in post-reform Russia has its roots in the combination of the new market system and the old legacy of discrimination. The Soviet Union was the first country to give women equal rights and equal pay, but this was not carried through in practice. This is the first study to apply modern econometrics to survey-data collected in the USSR. Analysis of data from Russia shows how legislative equality hid actual discrimination. Katz also challenges the conventional wisdom that, for ideological reasons, Soviet manual workers were favored over the highly educated. Gender, Work and Wages in the Soviet Union includes a critical survey of economic theories of gender and wages and the Soviet wage system. The final chapter brings the debate up to date by examining how old and new mechanisms of gender inequality interact in post-Soviet Russia. The plight of women in post-reform Russia has its roots in the combination of the new, untrammelled market system and the old legacy of discrimination. The Soviet Union was the first country to give women equal rights and equal pay, but this was not carried through in practice. This is the first study to apply modern econometrics to survey-data collected in the USSR. Analysis of data from Russia shows how legislative equality hid actual discrimination. Katz also challenges the conventional wisdom that, for ideological reasons, Soviet manual workers were favoured over the highly educated. Gender, Work and Wages in the Soviet Union includes a critical survey of economic theories of gender and wages and the Soviet wage-system. The final chapter brings the debate up to date by examining how old and new mechanisms of gender inequality interact in post-Soviet Russia. Annotation The plight of women in post-reform Russia has its roots in the combination of the new market system and the old legacy of discrimination. The Soviet Union was the first country to give women equal rights and equal pay, but this was not carried through in practice. This is the first study to apply modern econometrics to survey-data collected in the USSR. Analysis of data from Russia shows how legislative equality hid actual discrimination. Katz also challenges the conventional wisdom that, for ideological reasons, Soviet manual workers were favored over the highly educated. Gender, Work and Wages in the Soviet Union includes a critical survey of economic theories of gender and wages and the Soviet wage system. The final chapter brings the debate up to date by examining how old and new mechanisms of gender inequality interact in post-Soviet Russia Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Introduction....Pages 1-10 Gender, Discrimination and Western Economic Theory....Pages 11-48 Soviet Wages and Salaries....Pages 49-81 Women and Men in Taganrog and in the USSR....Pages 82-119 The Wages of Soviet Women and Men....Pages 120-160 Pay and Education....Pages 161-201 Taganrog Post-USSR: Patriarchy, Poverty, Perspectives....Pages 202-236 Summary and Conclusions....Pages 237-248 Back Matter....Pages 249-288 Applying modern econometrics to 1989-1998 survey data collected in Taganrog, finds that gender segregation is quite common - contrary to the notorious claim that, since the existence of the Soviet Union, men and women enjoy equal rights and that manual workers are favoured over the highly educated The Soviet Union was the first country to give women equal rights and equal pay, but this was not carried through in practice. This study applies modern econometrics to survey data collected in the USSR. Analysis of data from Russia shows how legislative equality hid actual discrimination The gigantic social and economic experiment carried out in post-USSR Russia has been accompanied by great and widespread hardship.