Gender Equality and Female Labour Force Participation in Russia: Whether the Role of Men in Family Childcare is Important

Abstract

This paper endeavors to explain how male participation in child upbringing influences women’s employment in Russia. Social economic factors determining the participation of the woman with children on the labour market and its relation to the partner’s participation in family life is the main topic of the study. The basic hypotheses are based on the gender transition concept. We use the data from the Gender and Generation Survey (1st harmonized Russian wave in 2004).The main subject of the research is married or living in cohabitation woman with children. As dependent variable we based our model on we use the women’s participation in the labour market, which will be explained by different models of partner’s participation in the process of child rearing. A control variable is the government social policy measured by a survey and other control variables describe the socio-economic status and background of the family.The results support the idea that broader female participation in the labour market is explained by increased male participation in the family life.