Keywords

1 Introduction

It has often been stated that the role of women under socialism was extensively reconstructed and that traditional lifestyles were forced to change. The prevailing communist ideology in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) made all citizens engage in the labor force equally. As a result, women played a major role in economic, social, and political life during the Soviet era (Lapidus 1978).

Changes in political regimes at the end of the twentieth century and capitalist development have altered the situation in the post-Soviet space. On the one hand, women have become less represented in the labor force (Pollert 2003; Chakars and Sweet 2014) due to a return to traditional norms and practices, the reorientation of some women toward family, and formal legislative changes. For example, women gained the right to stay home and not work; in the USSR, non-employment had been prohibited (Gimpelson et al. 2010). On the other hand, countries have experienced severe economic downturns since the collapse of the USSR. Most people have not been able to earn a living, and the informal sector of the economy has grown sharply (Gimpelsons and Kapelyushnikov 2006). Some women started working to avoid poverty or enhance their household finances, sometimes even becoming the family’s sole breadwinner. Furthermore, Western capitalistic values and norms have spread among employers since the fall of the Iron Curtain, and women have longed for monetary and career rewards equal to those of their male counterparts.

Sociologists have been noticing essential shifts in the value, norms, and practices of youth around the world. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, young men and women have demonstrated similar career trajectories, earned the same salaries, and made similar career development plans (Terjeson et al. 2007; Manning and Swaffield 2008; OECD 2012). However, little is known about the temporal and spatial characteristics of the relative job positions of young men and women. This chapter considers that issue by focusing on a region with a unique political history and socioeconomic background.

Recent studies have primarily sought to reveal the trends in the employment patterns of young men and women across 10 post-Soviet countries. This study’s main question is whether young women in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan have attained labor market statuses as intensive (in terms of working hours) and high (in terms of job positions) as those of their male counterparts over the last three decades. The study’s target group comprises employed youth aged 18–29 (in line with the UN and WHO definitions of “youth”). The key variables are employment type (full-time or part-time), indicating more or fewer hours of work per week, and job position (supervisor or non-supervisor), indicating a higher or lower position in a hierarchy. Using a regression analysis, the study clarifies whether being a young woman increases or decreases the probability of being employed full-time and holding a supervisory position relative to being a young man.

The chapter begins by briefly reviewing the theoretical frameworks addressing the fundamental question of why men and women may have similar or different positions in the labor market. After this theoretical introduction to the wider issue, an overview of empirical studies on youth employment from a gender perspective is briefly presented in Sect. 4.2. Then, the study’s data and methodology are described in Sect. 4.3. Next, the analysis results are provided. The last section offers concluding remarks and points to possible directions for future research.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Theoretical Approaches to Relative Labor Market Positions of Men and Women

The differences in working practices between men and women can be considered from two angles. On the one hand, the sex segregation theory addresses differences in behavior patterns between men and women in socioeconomic terms. This theory postulates that men and women have diverse life trajectories, experiences, skills, different tastes, and contrasting desires, which affects how they invest time and effort into career development. Consequently, males and females tend to have different labor market positions (Schultz 1990; Bussey and Bandura 1999; Grusky and Levanov 2008). According to this theoretical framework, differences in working practices between men and women do not depend on external factors such as institutions or sociocultural factors such as values and norms but on inherent biological differences, which ultimately impact the structure of the labor market.

The postulates of this theory have been corroborated by sociological studies. First, the research has found that men and women have different work motivations, orientations, and behavior patterns. Men tend to be more geared toward achievement, financial success, and career advancement, whereas women choose more socially oriented positions and jobs with flexible schedules, which allow them to combine work with family responsibilities (Hakim 1995; Clark 1997; Bender et al. 2005; Gunderson 2006; Lee et al. 2008; Cha 2010; Poplavskaya and Soboleva 2017, 2019). Second, traditionally “female” jobs have less stable labor market positions and offer fewer opportunities for career development. Women find it much more difficult to achieve financial or career success due to the “glass ceiling” and “sticky floor” problems (Arulampalam et al. 2007; Blau and Khan 2007; Rozada and Yeyati 2018). Third, a “gender paradox” phenomenon has been observed wherein women in objectively less attractive working conditions are more satisfied with their work and find it more interesting than men do; this has been attributed to their lower expectations from work (Clark 1997; Poplavskaya and Soboleva 2017).

On the other hand, social scientists introduced gender theory at the end of the twentieth century, which contrasts with the sex segregation theory described above (Udry 1994; Haig 2004). Gender theory posits that people can choose their own gendered roles in various facets of life. A number of studies have claimed that the role of women in the sphere of employment has been changing in Western societies. Recent survey findings have demonstrated that young women have greater career aspirations than men and are turning into achievers (Terjeson et al. 2007; OECD 2012). Studies have argued that male and female careers have begun to converge and that young men and women have started to earn equal salaries (Terjeson et al. 2007; Manning and Swaffield 2008). Some authors acknowledge a general shift from traditional to secular–rational values, asserting that individualistic aims such as self-actualization and career development are becoming more widespread among both men and women across multiple cultures (Inglehart and Welzel 2010). Some authors have noted that not only women (Mallon and Cohen 2001; Gold and Fraser 2002; Cabrera 2007) but also men have begun to change their traditional attitudes toward work. Clarke found that some young Australian men have struggled to meet family demands and wish to devote more time to household activities rather than to work, earning money, and career development (Clarke 2015). These tendencies are more evident among youth than among adults.

2.2 Empirical Evidence of Relative Labor Market Positions of Young Men and Women

The two theories described above represent fundamentally different approaches to understanding the relative positions of males and females in the labor market. Both theories are supported by empirical evidence.

Sociologists have found significant differences in experiences, work values, motives, career perspectives, attitudes, and behavior patterns between men and women, concluding that women tend to engage in part-time jobs, “flexi-risky” employment, and less demanding, low-wage positions to a greater extent than men do (Kalleberg and Rosenfeld 1991; Gunderson 2006; Manning and Swarffield 2008; Sullivan and Baruch 2009; Parry and Irwin 2011; McGuinness and Sloane 2011; Cuesta and Carcedo 2014). Moreover, women are generally less likely to be employed full-time (World Bank Group 2014), and OECD statistics demonstrate that a significant percentage of companies have no women on their board of directors. Women occupy less than one-third of managerial positions in firms, with small variations across countries (OECD 2012).

However, recent reports demonstrate that the behavior patterns of young men and women are changing. Girls have been found to display higher levels of academic engagement and achievement (Epstein et al. 1988; Francis 2000; Warrington et al. 2000; Duckworth and Seligman 2006), and young women—who are now being encouraged to pursue success and expect gender equity in the employment sphere—are demonstrating changing attitudes towards employment (Ng and Wiesner 2007; Terjeson et al. 2007). Organizational cultures are also changing, as more educated and high-skilled women are actively participating in employment, and more firms are welcoming such employees on board. It is important to test whether these tendencies are observed among post-Soviet youth. This study thus proposes the following:

Hypothesis 1

The labor market positions of young women in post-Soviet countries have become more similar to those of young men in terms of working hours and job positions during the last three decades.

2.3 Individual-Level Characteristics and Labor Market Positions of Young Men and Women

Current and future labor market positions depend not only on sex but also on diverse individual-level characteristics such as age, education, marital status, and parental status. It is commonly assumed that adults with tertiary education have better chances of being employed full-time and attaining higher positions in the hierarchy. For women, however, the situation is more complicated. First, age does not have the same effect on their job positions as it has on men’s. Manning and Swaffield provided evidence that early wage growth was similar for young men and women during the first 10 years of work after the completion of full-time education (Manning and Swaffield 2008) but that a wage gap developed afterward even if the woman continued full-time employment, had no children, and had the same personality as a man. This result shows that men and women have the same chances of obtaining a high-quality job, receiving the same salary, and holding a supervisory position when they are young.

Second, education is very important for labor market entry and often serves as a means of social mobility (Collins 1971; Gangl 2002; Wolbers 2007; Kogan 2012). Young graduates are highly trained and skilled, and tertiary education often helps youth to find well-paid jobs. However, the evidence suggests that young women graduates with tertiary education face problems associated with job mismatches, overeducation, and occupational diversity to a greater extent than their male counterparts (Figueiredo et al. 2015).

Third, marital and parental situations have an effect on the job positions of young men and women. Generally, women are more sensitive to changes in family situations (Stier et al. 2001) and often have to weight the costs and benefits of working against their household responsibilities and obligations (Becker 1981; Gronau 1977). Recent studies have shown that being a married woman with children decreases the likelihood of being employed full-time (Wright and Hinde 1991; Shockey and Mueller 1994). Given all of this evidence, this study proposes the following:

Hypothesis 2

Individual-level factors such as age and tertiary education increase the probability of a young woman in post-Soviet countries (a) to be employed full-time and (b) to be a supervisor. Being married and having children decreases the probability of such a woman (a) to be employed full-time and (b) to be a supervisor.

3 Data and Methodology

The study employed World Values Survey (WVS) repeated cross-sectional data (Inglehart et al. 2014) to see how the labor market practices of young men and women in post-Soviet countries have changed over time. The WVS includes nationally representative surveys with common questions for more than 100 countries. The data were collected in six waves: 1981–1984, 1989–1993, 1994–1999, 1999–2004, 2005–2007 and 2010–2014. These data allow us to compare the situation across countries and regions over time. They are the only available data that are suitable for the aims of this research.

The sample was confined to employed youth aged 18 to 29 years and living in 10 post-Soviet countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The final pool comprised 4,189 respondents. The list of countries and waves employed in the analysis as well as the number of observations according to sex are available in Table 4.1. The variables of interest are presented in Table 4.2.

Table 4.1 Number of observations by country-wave
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Table 4.2 Key survey variables
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The methodology consisted of two steps. The first was to calculate the ratio of men to women (a) employed full-time and (b) holding a supervisory position in one of the 10 post-Soviet countries in different time periods. This operation allowed us to paint a general picture of youth employment from a gender perspective across post-Soviet countries over time. The second step involved building two binary logistic regression analyses. The dependent variables were (a) being employed full-time and (b) holding a supervisory position. The independent variables included such characteristics as sex, age, tertiary education, marital and parental statuses, and country of residence.

4 Results

4.1 Differences in Employment Patterns Between Young Men and Women in Post-Soviet Countries Over Time

The study first analyzed the employment patterns of young men and women in post-Soviet countries in terms of working hours. The results are presented in Table 4.3. The factual ratios reflected in the static numbers indicate that young men seemed to dominate full-time positions in most of the post-Soviet countries. The cases where young women were equally engaged or were dominant in full-time positions were not statistically significant. Regarding temporal changes, there was a clear trend toward differences in employment types between young men and women in four out of the 10 countries. Significantly more men than women held full-time positions in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia at the end of a period. Ukrainian youth also demonstrated a trend towards difference; however, it was significant only for the latest period of observation. In the middle of the observation period, young men and women worked equal hours. In Uzbekistan, where only one survey was conducted (from 2010 to 2014), significantly more men than women were employed full-time.

Table 4.3 Time-trend analysis of ratios of men to women employed full-time
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The study then calculated the ratio of young men to women holding supervisory positions in the post-Soviet countries (see Table 4.4). The analyses show that many more young men than women have traditionally held supervisory positions in the trans-Caucasian region (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia). In the Western region (Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine), young women and men seem to have more equal positions in their workplaces’ hierarchical structures. Interestingly, Central Asian countries have different patterns. In Kazakhstan, slightly more women than men hold supervisory positions. In Kyrgyzstan, the positions of men and women are fairly equal. In Uzbekistan, men hold more high-status jobs than young women do. Unfortunately, the first hypothesis cannot be tested properly due to a lack of data covering the entire three-decade study period. Questions about supervising status were included in the questionnaire only in the two last waves of the WVS. The trend analysis was conducted only for three of the 10 post-Soviet countries. The analysis revealed that Georgia and Russia showed a trend towards similarity in job positions between young men and women. In both countries, more women were seen in the last period of observation to be holding high positions in the hierarchical structures of their workplaces than they had in the past.

Table 4.4 Time-trend analysis of ratios of men to women holding supervisory positions
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4.2 Influence of Individual-Level Factors on Employment Patterns of Young Men and Women in Post-Soviet Countries

The study conducted a binary logistic regression analysis to examine which individual-level characteristics had an impact on the likelihood of being employed full-time and as a supervisor in the post-Soviet countries. Only the last observation period was analyzed, and the sample was narrowed to 1,605 respondents.

First, the study tested how age, having a partner (i.e., being married), having children, and having tertiary education influenced the probability of being employed full-time. The results showed that being a young woman decreased and being older increased the probability of being employed full-time. Only one interaction effect proved to be significant (see Model 3 in Table 4.5), as having children decreased the probability of being employed full-time for young women.

Table 4.5 Binary logistic regression analysis model: being employed full-time is the dependent variable
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Model 5 was built to examine the differences across countries. It demonstrated that young women living in the post-Soviet space were generally less likely to be employed full-time than young men. In Russia, however, the probability of a young woman being employed full-time was higher than that of a young man.

The results of the second binary logistic regression analysis demonstrated that having tertiary education and being married increased the probability of holding a supervisory position for both men and women in the post-Soviet countries (see Table 4.6). No significant results were observed regarding the interaction effects between sex and individual-level characteristics. However, Model 5 demonstrated that being a young woman in Kazakhstan and Russia increased the probability of being a supervisor.

Table 4.6 Binary logistic regression analysis model: being a supervisor is the dependent variable
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5 Discussion

This study aimed to reveal the trends in employment patterns for post-Soviet youth from a gender perspective. The focus was on the relative labor market positions of young men and women regarding employment type (full-time vs. part-time) and job position (supervisor vs. non-supervisor). The study’s database comprised WVS repeated cross-sectional data, which offer a large international sample and enable an observation of trends over a long time period.

The recent research finds evidence of a convergence between male and female career trajectories (Ng and Wiesner 2007; Terjeson et al. 2007) and indicates that young men and women have relatively similar job positions (Manning and Swaffield 2008; OECD 2012). This study’s analysis of narrowed WVS samples composed of youth living in post-Soviet countries showed that those findings are not generalizable. The first hypothesis, regarding the trend towards similarity in working practices between young men and women in post-Soviet countries, was rejected. The results regarding working hours showed the opposite trend. During the last three decades, the ratio of men to women holding full-time positions is rising in most post-Soviet countries. Only Ukraine has the ratio fluctuated. This outcome may be a sign of an opposite trend of the difference in employment patterns between men and women and the reappearance of the traditional distribution of social roles in the post-Soviet space. The available temporal statistics on supervisory positions were not sufficient to make assumptions about time trends in post-Soviet countries.

The results of the binary logistic regression analyses also suggested that traditional social roles may be undergoing preservation in the post-Soviet space. In general, young women in post-Soviet countries are less likely to take full-time working positions than men, and having children for a young woman decreases this probability. Age increases the probability of being employed full-time, while being married and having tertiary education increase the probability of being a supervisor for both young men and women. Neither education nor family status has a significant influence on the probability of holding a supervisory position for a young woman.

The effect of country on the probability of a young woman holding full-time and supervisory positions was also tested. A regression analysis demonstrated that the general trend described above does not hold for Russia and Kazakhstan. The results showed that young women in Russia are more likely to have full-time and supervisory positions than men are. In addition, being a young woman in Kazakhstan increases the probability of holding a supervisory position relative to men.

This study provides a general picture of the trends in youth employment in post-Soviet countries. It casts doubt on what has been described as the inevitable convergence between male and female careers over time and across the world. This chapter enriches the literature on youth career trajectories (Sherer 2005; Eichhorst et al. 2014) and on job position comparisons between young men and women (Manning and Swaffield 2008; Clarke 2015).

Despite this study’s contributions, it has several limitations. The first one concerns employment of WVS data to assess labor market participation. Although the WVS is not commonly used for that purpose, it provides representative information on the current situation and temporal changes in the countries from which it draws its sample. Thus, using its data is justified, as it corresponds to the goal of this research and provides a fresh approach to the issue it examines. Second, the study assumed that it is possible to talk about common trends in post-Soviet countries, but the results demonstrated that trends differ significantly within the post-Soviet region.

This study points to several fruitful avenues for future research. First, a closer observation of the social, economic, and political backgrounds of the countries under examination is needed to fully explain the trends the study revealed. Second, recent studies provide only a factual preliminary picture of the gendered situation in the youth labor market of post-Soviet countries and do not account for the motives and aims young men and women have when entering the labor market. Such pull factors as a desire to take an active part in employment, work more hours, or climb the career ladder as well as such push factors as the necessity to earn money, escape from poverty, or keep a household have not yet been explored. Third, in-depth case studies on the countries under examination would help to reveal the local changes in the gendered situations in terms of various socioeconomic facets. Such case studies may provide a more thorough and accurate picture of the potential problems these changes could create for individuals, families, countries, and post-Soviet regions.