ABSTRACT
There are four aspects of female employment that are relevant to the assessment of the success of Soviet policy in this field. First, there is the question of the numbers of women in gainful employment. The measurement of the occupied female labour force in the USSR is complicated by the administrative distinction that Soviet statisticians make between state and collective-farm employment in agriculture. Secondly, one is interested in female participation rates, in the proportion of the female population that is in gainful employment. Since some women in the USSR continue to work after reaching the legal retirement age, the calculation of participation rates also raises the problem of the appropriate base population. The remaining two aspects of female employment, the share of women in total employment and the broad sectoral affiliation of the female labour force, are straightforward. This chapter examines each of these aspects in greater detail.
