ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of author's findings and provides a framework for understanding the relationship between gender and economic processes, including wealth and well-being. In the late 1980s, perestroika in the Soviet Union and economic reform in Eastern Europe were widely analyzed in terms of the profound economic and political changes they heralded for the system of state socialism. A critical aspect of global restructuring is the "emergence of the global assembly line in which research and management are controlled by the core or developed countries while assembly line work is relegated to semiperiphery or periphery countries that occupy less privileged positions in the global economy". Because it entails political, juridical, and ideological transformations, the scope of restructuring in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union encompasses more than stabilization, price liberalization, and privatization. In the Middle East since the 1960s, state expansion, economic development, and oil wealth have combined to create educational and employment opportunities favorable to women.
