Gender Equality and Individualistic Values as Determinants of Employment and Income in Central Asian Countries

Abstract

This chapter aims at disclosing the interrelationships of economic activity, support for gender equality, individualistic values and income in Central Asia. The authors use the 6th wave of the World Values Survey (2010–2014) to test empirically the association between employment, values and income for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and Russia. Gender equality attitudes in these four countries do not differ much from each other. In general, the societies are quite conservative in their evaluation of the women roles. The effect of gender equality on employment varies across the mentioned four countries. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan show that support for gender equality is negatively related to self-employment. The pattern in Russia is the opposite. Gender moderates the relationship between support for gender equality and employment status in the Central Asian countries, as distinct from Russia. The evidence from Russia demonstrates a strong and positive association between self-employment and individualism. However, in Central Asia individualism is a weak predictor for employment status.