The Kuzbass region ('Ruscoal's' location) has one industry - coalmining; thus, women find it quite difficult to obtain jobs. Female workers often experience
143 discrimination in the workplace. Many women work in deskilled data entry positions with few opportunities for career development. This is compounded by social changes in Russian society such as an increased number of unemployed people, a reduced level of social protection from the state and a general impoverishment of the Russian population during the transition. Ekaterina, 24, female, an Economist, gives an example:
My aunt worked as a power engineer and I always wanted to be like her… my aunt got a job without problems, it was in the Soviet Union time and after my graduation I was not able to find a job with my specialty... Nowadays, to find a job for women in a male-dominated profession is becoming more difficult. I think that all the girls who studied with me had experience of discrimination. I am an electro-engineer, a profession dominated by men, and if you send your CV somewhere, the most common answer is: `Girl? - Sorry, no`).
Another respondent, Ekaterina, 21, female, an Intern in the Accounting Department, agreed that women in Russia face discrimination in employment:
Not only I but also my female friends face discrimination in employment. "Girl… you soon will be pregnant, we do not need you as we don’t want to search for another employee after you go on maternity leave for three years." I believe that this is the most basic explanation for the discrimination against young women.
Experiences of gender discrimination appear to be strongly influenced by the respondents’ age. About 45 per cent of respondents claimed that they or their friends had experienced a situation where their working rights were impaired, and 90 per cent of these were women workers. Also, the experience of gender discrimination was influenced by the respondent's age. Employees over 50 years old had no concept of gender discrimination (or even what this term means), while younger workers aged 23-35 reported cases of gender discrimination in the workplace. ‘In Soviet Union times, salaries in the same positions were paid the same regardless of whether it was a man or a woman` (Nikolay, male, 46, Foreman). In the Soviet Union, communist ideology equated employment with emancipation, and the worker-mother contract was institutionally embedded within communist work regimes (Standing, 1994; Puffer, 1996). In pictures and leaflets
144 used by the government to reinforce the communist ideology, women were usually portrayed as doctors, engineers, farmers or technicians (LaFont, 2001). The communist ideology emphasizes the importance of female labour as the key factor in communist industrial development (LaFont, 1998). Consequently, as equality was the main characteristic of the communist ideology and a work was a duty, not a right, women worked the same hours as men in the labour market, as well as remaining responsible for domestic labour (Korovushkina, 1994). Moreover, wage levels in the Soviet Union were comparatively low; thus, it was hard to support a family on just one income, which is still the case in modern Russia. Therefore, women in Soviet Russia were not concerned with gender discrimination as they lived `in the most equal society in the world`. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the `new` Russian government highlighted the importance of allowing women ‘to return to their purely womanly mission’ at home. At this time, the government prohibited women’s employment in work involving harmful and dangerous conditions, and it transferred women to more suitable work in the service sector. In other words, older people were socialized within a communist system that emphasized by law that there was no gender discrimination; at the same time, however, it did not make equality between men and women a right, which has meant that, in a transition economy, young people are seeing the reassertion of a patriarchal thinking in relation to men’s and women’s employment.
4.11 Conclusion
The Russian Federation has maintained a comparatively high percentage of educated, skilled working women; however, the Russian Government has taken a paternalistic attitude towards them, using their biology as an excuse for excluding them from certain occupations. Thus, Russian Law legally discriminated against women by virtue of their reproductive capability. Moreover, in the time of transition the government increased the period of maternity leave and obligated employers to transfer pregnant women to jobs with `lighter working conditions`. It can be concluded that the government, by forcing managers to provide additional benefits for female workers such as paid maternity leave, time off for sick children, and restrictions in their employment, was not creating a privileged class of employees, as they claimed. Women become a second-class group of workers who
145 require more social benefits and face the imposition of stricter rules on their employment.
146 CHAPTER FIVE: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to analyze the data obtained from the `Ruscoal` Mining Company to identify relationships between the transition economy and the employment of male and female workers, and, in particular, how the gender composition of the workforce may change in a time of transition and what factors influence it. The key findings from the empirical work are analyzed in the light of the extant literature and the theoretical framework of the study.
The emergence of the Russian Federation, as an independent country, has resulted in vast social, political and economic change (Zohoori et al., 2003); for example, in `Ruscoal`, economic instability has led to the diminution of women’s labour market participation. Moreover, since the economic transition the wage gap between men and women has increased. This is linked to women’s work being graded lower than men’s. This has been caused by the state’s manipulation of women’s participation in the labour force and the reinforcement of patriarchy in Russian society; this has left women facing an increased burden of paid/unpaid work and an inability to challenge the gender discrimination occurring in the workforce. The inability of women to challenge gender discrimination is related to the occupational community from which the workforce is drawn (mono towns) and the high level of competition in the region, as well as the heritage of the Soviet Union and the geographical remoteness of Siberia. However, research shows that younger generations are recognizing or finding the language to recognize gender discrimination.
In order to analyze the key findings, this chapter is divided into two main sections: changes in gender composition during the transition time; and women's gender activism. The section on changes in gender composition within the mining industry includes five subsections: gendered changes within occupational sectors; changes and the impact of legislation of the Russian Federation; the social role distribution within Russian families; changes to gender pay structure within the mining industry; and the impact of technological change on women in the workplace. The section on activism (or non-activism) of Russian women consists of three main
147 subsections beginning with the identification of the impact of a small occupational community such as a mining town, religion and class-employment relations on gender diversity in Russia. The second part explains the role of the trade unions in gender equality. The final part examines generational differences in views on gender diversity in Russia.