ABSTRACT
The disparity in the earnings of the two sexes cannot be ascribed in any large measure to differences in hours worked; part-time employment is very seldom met with in the state sector. The policy of rapid industrialisation adopted in 1928 resulted in a substantial increase in the number of women in paid employment. In 1939 female participation rates were high by international standards and they have continued to increase in the past forty years. By the mid-1970s the USSR could claim to have achieved virtual full employment for women - at least in the more industrialised European part of the country. A major topic of discussion among academic demographers in recent years has been the causes of the decline in the birth rate in European parts of the USSR and what policies the government can adopt to reverse the trend.
