Title: Gender Equality in the Labour Market in Central and Eastern Europe: Attitudes to Women’s Work

Author: Sylke V. SCHNEPF
Institution: University of Southampton
Date: 2006 (published in S. V. Schnepf (2007) Women in Central and Eastern Europe. Measuring Gender Inequality Differently. Saarbruecken: VDM, pp. 84-136. ISBN: 978-3-8364-2526-1)
Subject area(s): International Studies
Relevance to other area(s): Economics, Sociology
Project type: Part of PhD Thesis

Summary

Photo by: 3mieszczanka, Creative Commons, Flickr.The analysis of economic factors usually applied for examining gender inequality in the labour market suggests that former post communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe have reached similarly high standards of gender equality compared to Western European countries. This paper aims at comparing attitudes to women’s work between transition and OECD countries highlighting the explanatory power of societal norms. The analysis of attitudes, their determinants and their change in regions and countries is based on mainly two waves (1994 and 1998) of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). These data reveal that a strikingly higher share of people in the East than in the West agrees with traditional values on women’s work. The large homogeneity in patriarchal values of Eastern European people with differing socio-economic background explains these regional differences. The East-West gap in traditional value orientations is likely to widen given that liberal values spread faster in OECD than in transition countries.

Datasets used

International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 1994, 1998, ESDS International, Mimas, University of Manchester. Only one question of the ISSP is examined for 23 countries over time: ‘Do you agree or disagree: A husband’s job is to earn money; a wife’s job is to look after the home and family?’

Aims and objectives

Commonly used economic indicators for measuring gender equality in the labour market show that women do not fare worse than men in Central and Eastern Europe. This stands in contrast to results of sociological literature claiming that women had to bear the higher burden during the transition process. The value added of this study is to analyse gender equality in the labour market from a different perspective using an indicator on patriarchal attitudes to women’s work. Attitudes of both, women and men are compared in and between transition and (pre 1990) OECD countries over time using the following question: ‘Do you agree or disagree: A husband’s job is to earn money; a wife’s job is to look after the home and family?’ Respondents can choose one of the following response categories: ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘neither agree nor disagree’, ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’. The study aims at answering three research questions:

1. Are there differences in agreement with the gender stereotype statement between East and West?
2. Where do these regional differences derive from?
3. How will attitudes to gender inequality change over time?

Methodology

For the first research question, cross tabulations of attitudes by region and country are provided. In addition it is examined whether conditional on socio-economic background regional differences found remain using ordered logistic regressions. Part two of the study employs an Oaxaca decomposition in order to investigate whether the share of regional differences in agreement with the traditional gender stereotype derives from regionally different impacts of individuals’ socio-economic background or varying regional population characteristics. The final part compares changes of agreement with the gender stereotype over time.

Results/Outcome

While economic indicators show that gender equality in the labour market is relatively similar in East and West, a focus on agreement with gender stereotypes reveals that a strikingly higher share of people believe that women should be housewives and men breadwinners in the East than in the West. E.g. in Russia as many as 70 percent of the population agrees that women’s job should be at home. This compares to e.g. 8 percent in Sweden. People in the East appear to be homogeneous in their strong patriarchal beliefs that are mainly unaffected by their socio-economic background like education and income. In contrast, in the West these beliefs are predominantly shaped by individual background. Surprisingly, gender differences in agreement with gender stereotypes on work are anything but substantial within countries, this proves also to be true once controlled for background characteristics.

Comparing OECD with transition countries shows that agreement with patriarchal values is more conform between age groups in the East than in the West. This might indicate that the substantial regional gap in patriarchal values might even increase over time.

The high adherence to patriarchal values regarding women’s work as well as their probable persistence over time are concerning. These attitudes are likely to impact upon labour market policies and people’s (e.g. employers) behaviour. As a consequence, they are deemed to shape women’s opportunities. Hence, it is astonishing that the high patriarchal attitudes to women’s work in the East cannot be revealed once focusing on economic indicators like gender differences in employment rate and gender pay ratio.

Further research would need to examine why different indicators reveal different results on gender equality in the labour market.

Additional information:

Figure 1: Percent of respondents in response categories of gender attitude by region.

Note: OECD countries are Australia, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA and West-Germany. CEE countries are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, East-Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia. Figures refer to the unweighted country group average. Source: ISSP 1998, author’s calculations.

Figure 2: Percent of respondents agreeing with the patriarchal gender attitude by country.

Note: people who agree with the gender attitude are those who either answered ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’. Source: ISSP 1998, author’s calculations.

Figure 3: Share of respondents agreeing (agree + strongly agree) with traditional gender roles by age group and region.

Note: OECD and CEE country group agreement refers to unweighted average of country figures. OECD countries are Australia, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA and West-Germany. CEE countries are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, East-Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia. Source: ISSP 1998.

References and/or acknowledgements

Many thanks are due to John Micklewright and Thomas Straubhaar for comments and advice. This research was supported by the University of Hamburg with a post-graduate grant and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Project website

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/socsci/socstats/staff/abstract.php?id=3656