Women in Transition: Changes in Gender Wage Differentials in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
研究了东欧和前苏联国家在市场化改革后女性相对工资的变化，发现中欧国家女性相对工资显著上升，而俄罗斯和乌克兰则大幅下降，主要受工资分布变化和歧视程度影响。
Under socialism, women in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union fared relatively well in the labor market: female-male wage differentials were similar to those in Western Europe and the United States, and female labor force participation rates were among the highest in the world.Have women in these countries maintained their relative positions since the introduction of market reforms in the early 1990s?This question is investigated using household survey data from three former Soviet republics and six East European countries.The results indicate a remarkable increase in female relative wages in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and a substantial decline in female relative wages in Russia and Ukraine.Women in the latter countries have been penalized by the tremendous widening of the wage distribution in those countries.Modest increases in wage inequality in Eastern Europe have also depressed female relative wages, but these losses have been more than offset by gains in rewards to observed skills and by an apparent decline in discrimination against women.Female labor force participation rates have fallen significantly in all countries but have been matched by similar declines in male labor force participation rates.Fong and Paul (1992) and Paukert (1994) discuss some of these issues.1 2 change in women's economic status over this period to be broadly similar across the countries surveyed here.The surprising finding, however, is the opposite: while women in some countries --such as Russia and Ukraine --are now faring substantially worse in terms of wages relative to men than they did under socialism, women in other countries --such as Poland, Hungary and Slovenia --have gained significantly relative to men since the late 1980s.These differing labor market experiences appear to be related both to differing changes in the wage structure across countries (rising inequality and increasing prices of measured and unmeasured skills) and to changes in gender-specific factors such as discrimination.Differing macroeconomic performances across these countries appears to play little role in explaining the differences.It should be noted at the outset that while the female-male wage differential is one summary measure of women's labor market experience, this statistic in itself does not capture the full range of women's experiences in transition.This paper focuses on changes in relative wages and briefly discusses labor force participation rates, but ignores other aspects of the changes in women's daily lives.A fuller treatment of the topic would examine changes in the female burden of non-market work, such as shopping and child care, which are clearly affected by the reforms, as well as the relative benefits of political liberalization.While these issues undoubtedly contribute to changes in the quality of women's lives, they are beyond the scope of this paper. 1II.Labor market institutions and female labor market performance under socialism With the exception of the worker self-management system in Yugoslavia (see Orazem and 2 Vodopivec (1995) for a description).Labor market institutions in socialist countries are described in Adam