ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the gendered dimensions of Romania’s transition from a command to a capitalist economy, focusing on how this process affected women’s employment patterns and standard of living, their facility in reconciling work and family, and their view of the state. As scholars have found in other places in Central-Eastern Europe (CEE), the collapse of state socialism created new occupational opportunities for some women, however, it also produced uncertainties due to rising inflation, curtailment of social entitlements, and deindustrialization. It has also given rise to workplace discrimination against middle-aged women and women of fertility age. At the same time, continuities with the pre-1989 period remain, namely, vertical and horizontal segregation of the labor force and women’s under-representation in high-level and high-paying jobs. The adoption of neoliberal policies in the early 2000s further exacerbated the economic vulnerability of some, particularly blue-collar workers, female single-headed households, women retirees, and Roma women. Although emigration has helped mitigate the impact of neoliberal policies, it also undermines family cohesion. Given the repressiveness and penury of the 1980s, women in Romania arguably had the most to gain in CEE with the collapse of state socialism, yet they too have experienced the transition to a market economy unevenly and ambiguously, as the changes ushered in after 1989 have generally failed to live up to their expectations.
