Gender analysis of the Russian labor market

• Main Author: Aleksandr Mikhailovich Panov
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, Vologda Research Center 2014-07-01
• Series: Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
• Subjects: labor market; gender; wages; inequality; discrimination
• Online Access: http://esc.vscc.ac.ru/article/542/full?_lang=en
• ISSN: 2307-0331; 2312-9824

The issue of gender inequality in the labor market affects all world countries to some extent. As salary is the basis of population’s sources of income in Russia, unequal pay to men and women for equal work can trigger gender discrimination in the labor market and beyond. The article focusses on the gender analysis of the Russian labor market. It focuses on conjunctural conditions of the labor market in a gender aspect, socio-economic characteristics of men and women as subjects of the labor market and the institutional features of the Russian labor market. The study reveals that, despite lower wages, women, judging by their socio-economic characteristics, possess competitive advantages over men, having higher level of education and better state of health. In addition to horizontal segregation, traditional partition of industries to “male” and “female”, the main causes of gender wage gaps are discriminatory social attitudes and social role of women. The issue to address gender discrimination in the modern Russian society becomes more critical due to contradiction between normative-legal acts, stipulating the gender equality in all spheres of life, and discriminatory social attitudes. The article gives a brief overview of research and practice publications on the problem of gender disparities in labor remuneration and methods to address them in the developed world. The state statistical monitoring of labor productivity in terms of gender is considered as a tool for in-depth study of discrimination