Gender and Transition: Ten Years Later

Ewa Ruminska-Zimny, UNECE

Transition is a process of grand change which brings dramatic challenges to all dimensions of economic, social and human development. On the one hand, it generates the rise of job insecurity, unemployment and poverty. On the other, new opportunities emerge that are related to democratization, development of entrepreneurship and the private sector. Today we know that those risks and opportunities are distributed in a very uneven way, of which gender is a major dimension.

The gender impact of transition differs by country and region. In general, there is evidence that in most countries women take a disproportionally high share of the costs of systemic changes while their access to opportunities remains low. However, the lack of opportunities also has devastating effects on many men, especially those with narrow technical skills. In many declining regions, including one-company towns and rural areas, jobs are difficult to find even for young men, leading to anti-social behaviour such as drinking, drug use, crime and domestic violence.

In transition economies, women have a limited impact on establishing new laws, institutions and policies as they remain vastly underrepresented in new decision making structures especially at national level. The share of women in Parliaments varies, with few exceptions, between 1.5% to 15% of all seats. Women’s losses in the labour market have been very high in a number of countries and the erosion of the welfare system of the past has required that women play a much bigger role in performing caring functions. Although the full extent of female poverty is difficult to evaluate due to the lack of data, deep cuts in women’s employment and income, lower wages, dependency on shrinking family benefits and increasing costs of living and raising a family strongly suggest that poverty among women is widespread.

The reversal of these negative trends in gender equality is crucial in terms of respecting human rights of individuals. Engendering transition policies is also necessary to fully use human potential which is a key factor in economic growth. Gender equality is thus a priority for improving economic efficiency and development prospects.

Women’s losses in the labour market

Economic recession, the closure of plants, restructuring and the financial squeeze have had especially negative effects on women’s jobs and participation in the labour market. According to the ECE Economic Survey for Europe 1999, the longer term trends indicate that the female labour force and employment shrank in all countries for which data are available. Between 1985-1997 the female labour force in Hungary fell by over one third and in Latvia by nearly one fourth. It declined even in those countries where the male labour force remained stable, such as Estonia and Poland, or where it increased, as in the Czech Republic, Lithuania and the Russian Federation. Women’s share in employment also declined more than men’s share, with the exception of Slovenia where employment cuts were proportional for men and women. The twelve percent cut in female employment in the Czech Republic, though one of the smallest, was more than 10 times larger than that of male employment.

Women were hurt more than men by employment cuts in agriculture and industry. Female job cuts in industry were related to the shedding of clerical positions and the restructuring of light industries, such as textiles, which lost state support in the early phase of transition as opposed to male-dominated heavy industry. Women were also affected by large cuts in employment in the feminized public service sector and lost many jobs in transport and communication. This was not balanced by any meaningful increase in women’s employment in expanding market-related services. In most transition economies, women’s position in these services has deteriorated, such as in the increasingly well paid financial sector. Between 1993 and 1997 women’s share in the financial sector has declined by 24 percentage points in Latvia and by 10-14 percentage points in Hungary, Lithuania and Russia. At the same time women’s share in employment in underpaid public services such education and health has increased.

 

Discrimination and labour market policies

The deterioration in the position of women in the labour market is also explained by discriminatory practices and labour market policies. Discriminatory practices are seen especially in private sector and reflect de facto discrimination in hiring and employment. Such discrimination is often difficult to quantify and is possible due to gaps in legislation and the lack of law enforcement mechanisms. It is based on claims that women are less able to work under pressure and less available to work overtime which is required by firms in the private sector, and that they increase labour costs due to maternity and child benefits. In reality, however, many of welfare benefits remain in force only on paper and are no longer observed. This puts women at a double disadvantage. Working mothers are less competitive on the labour market, and at the same time, do not benefit from social protection.

In many transition economies, women were encouraged to leave the labour market through early retirement policies (the Czech Republic and Poland) and more attractive parental leave schemes (Belarus and Ukraine). Women’s withdrawal from the labour force has been seen as a remedy for massive male unemployment and cuts in childcare provided by the state.

Self-employment and entrepreneurship

Self-employment and entrepreneurship have become an important avenue to improve women’s chances in the labour market. In all countries with economies in transition, there are success stories of women entrepreneurs, and many are related to opening of new markets. The number of women entrepreneurs is, however, still relatively small and lower than for men. According to national data at the end of 1990s the share of self-employed women in total female employment was only around 8% in Bulgaria and in the Czech Republic (this share is around 15% for men) and 11% in Hungary (19% for men) and 18 % in Poland (26% for men). The instability of the tax system and other regulations in the private sector, the lack of access to credit, weak institutional network of information and business sup- port services limit development of new companies.

Women also face gender specific barriers. Most networks, such as trade and business associations as well as informal “old-boys” networks, do not include women. Women are thus in a worse position than men in terms of getting important information on credit, training opportunities, finding business partners and markets. They also have less access to collateral as privatization has given men more access to assets than women. Finally, the social climate in many countries and stereotype views of gender roles translate into a negative public attitude towards women entrepreneurs, unequal treatment by the state administration and/or discrimination in connection with bank loans. In many countries, women are also more vulnerable as victims of new forms of criminal offence, widespread in a number of transition economies.

Clearly entrepreneurship is not an option open to all women looking for employment. For many of them, the only option is to accept low pay and insecure jobs in a private sector where their jobs are seen as a way to lower operating costs. Women most often find labour-intensive and low paid jobs in small firms, partly in the “grey economy”, while men get better paid managerial positions in larger companies. Private employers tend to offer short-term contracts or casual work to women to avoid costs which might arise from maternity and childcare. Part-time and other less secure work contracts are on the rise and in a number of countries there is a trend towards feminization of this segment of the labour market.

Increase of caring functions

In countries of Eastern Europe and the CIS, the family support system has weakened substantially during the transition. In the past, this system was guaranteed by the labour code, enabling women to raise a family while working full time. Decentralization and the transfer of enterprise-managed childcare facilities to municipalities has cut many services, especially in rural communities and in small towns.

Kindergarten enrolment declined in all countries, but especially in the Russian Federation and some other former Soviet republics. Though some countries, such as Belarus and Lithuania, increased the length of maternal and parental leave, the value of compensation declined. At the same time women spend more time with children to compensate for the deterioration in public education and health care. In many countries school programmes have been reduced. Schools also lost the ability to carry out their social functions such as the provision of free medical services, after-school care, sport and cultural activities. These functions played an important role in ensuring equal opportunities for children from poorer families. Many health establishments cut back on services that were free of charge and reduced the length of stay at hospitals. Home care for children and the elderly have added to women’s caring functions.

Key challenges and policy directions

Problems of the deterioration of women’s position in the economy in Eastern Europe and in the CIS countries are the weakness of policies addressing these problems. The majority of women are therefore confined to immediate coping strategies, consisting in getting a job at any price. In the case of younger women, many of them have adjusted to the new situation in the labour market through cutting on caring functions and delaying marriage and having fewer children.

Against this background, the main message is that active gender equality policies are indispensable for minimizing the risks and maximizing the opportunities which are created for women by the transition and globalization processes.