ABSTRACT
This chapter describes elements of the gendered post-state socialist labor market experience as well as its development. It shows that the "motherhood penalty" is sizeable at access to paid work in Hungary, especially among well-educated women, and mothers' chances of advancing to supervisory positions are worse than those of non-mothers. Nevertheless, the proportion of Hungarian women in managerial positions is the EU average. Women's emancipation was part of the political agenda of state socialist policy makers. Women were to participate in the labor force along with men, full time, all through their adult lives. In 1990, after the economic collapse of the system of central planning, the decline in the proportion of people in employment was more radical and abrupt in Hungary than in most other Central and Eastern European countries. An important achievement of the state socialist regime is the expansion of the educational system and the speedy inclusion of women in all levels of schooling.
