Women's Entrepreneurship in the Republic of Tuva: Motives, Barriers and Opportunities

Abstract

The article analyzes the gender characteristics of economic and entrepreneurial activity among the population of Tuva.
 The transformation of the structure of the regional economy and the labor market in the post-Soviet period consisted in a significant reduction in the primary and secondary sectors due to the destruction of the agricultural and industrial complexes of Tuva, in which mainly men had been employed. During the socio-economic crisis of the 1990s, excessively feminized branches of the tertiary sector, such as education, healthcare, and social assistance, saved jobs. In addition, the higher level of education of women in the republic compared to men increased their adaptive capabilities in a crisis. For these reasons, a steady and long-lasting trend has begun in Tuva since the 1990s, in which women demonstrate greater economic activity compared to men, which does not coincide with global and Russian trends. The gender gap in favor of women in employment emerged also due to the general modernization processes in Tuvan society in the XX century, which resulted in the shaping of a new gender order and a new type of family with double income and two breadwinners.
 The analysis of women's economic activity in general and entrepreneurship at the present stage has shown that women play a key role in the formation of a social group of entrepreneurs and owners of small and medium-sized businesses. A regional feature is that the share of entrepreneurship as a social community still remains insignificant in the social structure of Tuvan society. The fact that in the gender composition of individual entrepreneurs of Tuva, women slightly, but still quantitatively exceed the number of men, demonstrates the leveling of socio-cultural stereotypes associated with the historically established distribution of gender roles. The peculiarities of gender differentiation in economic activities are that women are represented in many areas that have traditionally been considered "male", that the gender-marked areas are practically absent. According to the opinion of women-entrepreneurs, there are no institutional, formal barriers to women's entrepreneurship in Tuva. At the same time, the general problems of poverty of the population remain relevant, causing difficulties in starting financial opportunities for the majority of the population, barriers of a socio-psychological nature.