ABSTRACT
The positive impact of the transition reached rural areas later than urban areas and varied according to the alternative opportunities that became available in different parts of the country. Privatization of agricultural land, closure of agricultural cooperatives and the loss of jobs in the towns led to high rates of unemployment in rural areas. Standing notes that in the Soviet Union the end of collectivization in agriculture and the transfer of labour from agriculture to the tertiary sector put considerable strain on the labour market. Moghadam suggests that this rural restructuring has profound gender implications and draws parallels with China where the retreat from collective farming to the household responsibility system and the family farm, encouraged a resurgence of patriarchal attitudes in the countryside and a diminished status for women. In the early period of collectivization, 1956-1968, household plots were used for subsistence and women provided almost three-quarters of the labour time.
