ABSTRACT
Russian workers are confronted by a chaotic and poorly regulated labour market, in which securing a living wage is a major feat. Many enterprises pay wages well below the subsistence minimum, some still pay wages late,1 while a large number offer appalling and often illegal working conditions. This chapter analyses gender differences in employment strategies formulated in response to this transformed labour market. It divides strategies into those which are achievement-oriented and those which are defensive. Under the former heading we place behaviours such as improving qualifications and changing profession, while under the latter we include the strategies of engaging in supplementary employment and relying on state resources. The chapter looks first at mobility, then skill and qualification enhancement, then supplementary employment, and finally at the use of state resources. In each case, gender differences with regard to the prevalence of the behaviour and the nature of its outcomes are analysed. Our expectation was that men would be more likely to engage in achievementoriented strategies such as job changing, and that their defensiveness would take the form of secondary employment. Meanwhile, women’s high educational level led us to expect that their achievement-oriented strategies would take the form of skill enhancement, while their defensiveness would be expressed in reliance on state resources. These expectations were partly fulfilled, although the level of mobility and dynamism among our female respondents surprised us. But it came as little surprise that, despite the activism of our female sample, they secured lesser rewards than men with comparable behaviour.
