The socio-economic changes taking place in East Central Europe have brought about considerable shifts in the current position of women and men compared to the past. One area in which such changes have been experienced concerns the position of men and women in the labour market.The level of employment, wage differences and vertical and horizontal gender segregation are influenced not only by the emergence of themarket economy, the pace of economic restructuring, and the external effects of globalisation and European integration, but also by institutional, cultural and social frameworks. However, macro-economic and macro-social transformations are experienced by individuals at the level of locality. For example,Walby's (1994) conception of differentiated patriarchy permits the recognition of the diversity of women's situation between different areas or localities without giving up the concept of male domination and female subordination (Perrons1998).Therefore, in evaluating paidwork in relation to the division of labour in the household, as an important element of patriarchy, a first step should be to shift the emphasis of analysis from the national level to the examination of sub-national spatial differences. Following this approach, the most important arguments developed in this

chapter are as follows. First, spatial inequality in Hungary's labour market affects women and men differently. Second, levels of gender inequality in paid work are most severe in regions and settlements increasingly falling behind in the process of capitalist development.Third, accession to the European Union (EU) is likely to have little positive impact on the gendered nature of the uneven spatial development in the labour market. This chapter therefore examines how economic activity, occupational restructuring and unemployment created differing situations for women and men in different places in Hungary. The chapter relies on national and regional statistical data as well as the results

of a case study examining settlements in one county in south-east Hungary. In addition, the difficulties people living in `backward' rural areas have to face will be illustrated from ongoing research in two contrasting regions,1 three villages located in GyÎr-Moson-Sopron County, one of Hungary's most advanced counties in the north west and located next to the Austrian border and three

villages in Be¨ke¨s County, one of the most `backward' counties in the south east near the Romanian border (Figure 7.1). These villages can be paired across the contrasting two regions with Me¨hkere¨k in Be¨ke¨s and Ja¨nossomorja in GyÎrMoson-Sopronbeing themost advanced villages in the border zones with frontier stations and a several thousand-strong population. Zsira in GyÎr-Moson-Sopron County and KÎrÎsnagyharsa¨ny in Be¨ke¨s County illustrate ageing villages, each with a population of under one thousand, high unemployment figures and unfavourable accessibility. Finally, GyÎru¨jbara¨t and Szabadk|¨gyo¨s represent villages enjoying prosperity through suburbanisation. As part of a broader study, 35 women living in some sort of relationship in the six villages have so far been interviewed about their own and their partners' family backgrounds, places of work, education, division of labour in the household, their survival strategies, and their own role in them, their evaluation of the period of transition and its effects, and how they consider the position of their settlement and region affects their lives.The labourmarket chances of the inhabitants of the villages studied are as varied now as they are likely to remain after accession to the EU. At the same time, however, women's disadvantageous position in the competition for paid work and the inequalities of household divisions of labour have turned out to be widespread and a common experience for women after the collapse of communism.