ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the transition from socialist social provisioning to new forms of social provisioning in Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the post-1989 period from a gender-aware perspective. The socialist model of provisioning is known for important failures, particularly famines in the early years of the Soviet Union and China in the late 1950s. Still, when the market reform occurred at the end of the 1980s, socialist countries were middle-income countries, with average incomes comparable to countries like Portugal and New Zealand. Policymakers in many countries, eager to deliver the expected benefits of markets and to secure support from international financial institutions, quickly dismantled state-run institutions and privatized state property, to create space for individual provisioning through markets. Across the board, however, it took much longer than expected for private economic activity to expand. The impact of post-socialist provisioning models on welfare, care burdens and employment are important areas for future feminist economic analysis.
