Spatial and Social Disparities of Employment and Income in Hungary in the 1990s

Abstract

It is well known that in communist countries 15-20% of employees in state com­panies were not needed. This phenomenon was called “unemployment behind the gates” (Dövényi 1995, 115). Since many state-owned companies were not com­petitive, it comes as no surprise that since the introduction of the market economy, the percentage of gainfully employed has decreased considerably. In the late 1980s, several authors predicted that female employment rates would be affected to a larger degree by the transition process than those of men. This pessimistic forecast was based on the assumption that the communist systems had achieved gender equality, and that this equality would be destroyed by the introduction of a market economy. However, gender equality under socialism was more of a myth than a reality. While it is true that the percentages of gainfully employed women and men differed only slightly in communist countries, the gender-specific seg­mentation of employees among the work force was extremely pronounced and spatially varied. This fact was relatively unknown in the West, mainly because data and research results on social inequalities in communist countries were not published until the late 1980s or appeared only at a high level of spatial aggrega­tion which concealed the extent of inequalities. When the relevant data became accessible in the 1990s, it became clear that many scientists in western countries had been led to believe in an ideological construct.KeywordsLabour Force ParticipationEmployment RateSocialist CountryGainful EmploymentCommunist CountryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.