ABSTRACT
Many studies carried out in the socialist countries indicate that the occupational qualifications of women in them are higher than in capitalist countries. The proportion of women among engineering and technical personnel is increasing. In the branches of material production, higher skill grades are established for more substantial types of work requiring technical knowledge. In spite of the growing percentage of women among workers in mechanized jobs, most of them continue to be employed in the less mechanized areas of production. The historical conditions of life activity have also engendered the equation of female labor with manual labor and male labor with mechanized. The attitudes of factory management play a great part in realizing female workers' desires to continue their education. Women's advancement to more skilled jobs and, especially, managerial positions is still blocked by remnants from the past in approaching women as housewives and viewing their participation in social labor as a temporary and passing phenomenon.
