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Gender and Generation Gaps in Russian Economic Values during the Yeltsin Years
Author(s) -
Stegmaier Mary A.,
Erb Gwyn
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.259
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 1555-5623
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.2005.tb00802.x
Subject(s) - fell , government (linguistics) , democratization , shock therapy , affect (linguistics) , communism , demographic economics , shock (circulatory) , political science , democracy , development economics , politics , economics , sociology , law , medicine , geography , philosophy , linguistics , cartography , communication
Russians today enjoy freedoms and opportunities unknown to previous generations. However, when economic shock therapy commenced in 1992 certain societal groups faced distinct disadvantages. Because women encountered discrimination in hiring, were more likely to be laid off, and government propaganda encouraged them to return to their traditional roles, the numbers of women employed declined at twice the rate of the decline in men's employment during the Yeltsin years. Older generations also experienced great hardships at this time, particularly those who received state pensions. How did these different experiences based on gender and generation affect support for free‐market values in early post‐communist Russia? We explore this question with World Values data from 1991 and 1995, drawing from questions appearing across both surveys. While important differences emerged in cross‐temporal analysis of attitudes, the relative orientations of these groups remained surprisingly stable over this time span. For example, while overall orientations toward government versus private ownership of businesses turned decidedly toward increased government involvement, women continued to be less positively oriented toward the free‐market than men, which is consistent with the pre‐democratization period. However, men's views fell more precipitously than those of women, which was a result not anticipated by the existing literature exploring this era.