26.03.09

In these really messy days for the world economy and finances and for each single individual as well the position of the woman in society and quite often in the family is undergoing fundamental transformations. On the labor market and on the family front trends look mixed.

While many employers have begun to rid themselves (whenever possible) of women employees, for they think that in days of turmoil men are more reliable, in the managerial personnel segment women's share is growing, largely because they are less inclined to take unreasonable risks. Lastly, the promotion of women to senior positions is an official policy of the day.

The effects the crisis is having on families differ, too. Some families get more united, and others split up.

The trade union daily Trud says that as the crises rages, many Russian companies prefer to dismiss women employees. The employers remain in the web of gender stereotypes. They claim that men have a greater stamina, that they are more resourceful and apt for work under constant pressure.

Men, as many bosses believe, can afford to spend much more time on doing their job right, because they have no household chores to attend, they can be sent on assignment away from home at short notice, or work extra hours on weekends. Men far more rarely take their employers to court, or lodge complaints with the labor inspectorate or the prosecutor's office. Lastly, men have virtually no chances of taking a paid paternity leave to take care of a newly-born.

"The current situation as it is, very few companies can afford the luxury of investing in a newly-hired woman employee only to agree to maintain her throughout the maternity leave and to seek substitute shortly afterwards. Human resources managers have even invented a professional jargonism for this type of job applicants - "She's looking for a good place where to deliver," says independent HR specialist Alexander Sivogrivov.

"When the crisis struck, the number of maternity leaves soared," HR director at the Tekhnosila company, Boris Rezapov, told the trade union daily Trud.

Analysis of ten employment offers for white-collar workers shows that six of them are addressed to male aspirants. A mere six months ago the situation was totally different. Employers more eagerly hired young ladies, arguing that they are more responsible, industrious and scrupulous than any man.

"When the first tide of layoffs rose, the labor inspectorate offices, prosecutors, and courts were flooded with grievances by fired women employees," the daily quotes Pavel Lambrov, a lawyer at the Nikolayev and Partners legal consultancy as saying. The analyst believes that men tend to take the news they've got the sack more easily. Their anger about the injustice most often erupts in the form of strong words addressed to the former boss and company.

"Women, in particular, single ones with children, are more dependent on having a permanent job and source of income than men, and for this reason they fight for their rights to the bitter end," Lambrov says.

One more detail to the picture.

"In critical times, as is known, everybody is expected to work more and be paid less. In most cases men feel greater freedom than women in this sense, because they don't have to spend so much time on domestic chores. So they can afford to devote more time and effort to work than women," says the president of the personnel agency Glasford, Valery Polyakov.

In the meantime, women have been actively trying themselves at professions that have seemed to be purely masculine ones until just recently. For instance, ever more women seek to master the profession of a lathe operator at the Chelyabinsk tractor plant (CTZ). As the Ural-Press-Inform agency has said, of the 14 students in a group of future lathe operators at the CTZ instruction center seven are women. Their choice of a new profession was a conscious one. All have long records of work elsewhere - there are former salesgirls, medical nurses, teachers and managers. What makes the CTZ so attractive to women lathe operators is a stable wage and an impressive package of social guarantees.

Over the first year of his presidency Dmitry Medvedev has more than once complained most senior positions are occupied by men, who are reluctant to share power with women. Just recently, he decided to set an example. In the government that was formed shortly after he took office two key seats - that of economic development and trade and of health and social development went to women ministers - Elvira Nabiullina and Tatyana Golikova. And last week a third lady - Yelena Skrynnik - took office as new agriculture minister. Three women ministers in the same Cabinet is something unheard-of in Russia.

The message from above was promptly driven home. In Tatarstan, the first-ever woman chief of one of the districts was appointed. She is Tatyana Voropayeva.

Since the moment the economic crisis began to unfold the number of women taking managerial positions has grown from 30 percent to 40 percent, according to a Price-Waterhouse-Coopers survey the BBC has quoted. As some surveys have indicated, amid the crisis the role of women among the chiefs of private businesses has begun to rise.

"As a rule, women working for private companies are paid significantly less than men and, naturally, the employers prefer to retain the less costly personnel," explains Irina Avdonina, the director of the company ANKOR Banks, Financial Services.

Women seldom take risks, and this quality is exceptionally valuable during the crisis, analysts say.

"Men often dared conclude high-risk transactions, men played on the stock markets, men caused the prices of oil to hit the roof. Now everybody will have to taste the effects of reckless actions by representatives of the brave sex," Avdonina says.

On the Russian families the crisis has had a very controversial effect. For most Russians, as an opinion poll by the research center of the SuperJob.ru has found, the family is far more important than career. In any case, the loss of a job is not regarded as a reason enough to initiate divorce procedures.

Approximately one-third of the respondents said they would be prepared to support their jobless spouses in looking for new employment, and a majority of those who said so are women. Husbands are less considerate in this sense, but at the same time 27 percent of them said they would let their wives take their time after dismissal, stay at home and pay more attention to kids. As for the ladies, they are in no mood of letting their husbands play truant. A mere eleven percent said they would allow the dismissed husband lazy days away on the sofa drinking beer and watching football.

About one-third of the polled said they would be prepared to provide moral support for the dismissed spouse. As for material backing, the situation is much worse. Only seven percent said they would agree to share their earnings.

Two percent have nothing against using the spouse's dismissal to saddle him/her with household work and at the same time to make this look like a token of love and care - "Don't you see, it will only do you good, if you forget about career problems for a while and switch attention to the home and the kids." As many Russians acknowledged, they would most probably fail to live through the 'black period' in life following dismissal and eventually apply for divorce.

The daily Novyie Izvestia has conducted its own analysis of trends that developed in Russia's 'vital cells of society' of late. According to the survey, adult children stop living separate lives to get back to the parents' homes, and housewives start working and in this way equalize their financial status with that of their husbands. Psychologists say that ever more often those dismissed make a decision to have a baby instead of finding a new job.

"The crisis is prime time for all sorts of gigolos hunting for lonely ladies of means," says the director of the Practical Psychology Center, Sergei Klyuchnikov. Alongside this "the institution of mistresses" is falling into neglect. It is being discarded as "a low liquidity asset" and "unprofitable partnership."

"In the days of the crisis relationships that have long been on the brink of collapse have fallen apart instantly. The people suddenly realized that it is far easier for them to survive if they are alone, and they put an end to affairs they have long found burdensome," says family psychotherapist Olga Troitskaya.

On the contrary, some couples during the crisis stop quarrelling and try to get out of it all together. Troitskaya calls this reconciliation "an armistice" and warns that if the basis of relations remains fundamentally unchanged, a future split will be inevitable.

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Source: Itar-Tass