ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an assessment of the position of women in Soviet agriculture, of their earnings, of the amount of work they do, of the sorts of occupations in which they are to be found, bearing all these points in mind. There is extensive occupational segregation in Soviet agriculture; women are still confined to manual work in the fields that demands considerable physical strength and promises little financial reward. Women also experience greater seasonal fluctuations in their employment than do men. An increase in the numbers of women leaving the villages and a return to demographic normalcy has meant that by the mid-1970s collective farm membership is almost equally divided between the sexes. Private plots are important as a source of agricultural commodities and they have also proved a vital source of peasant household income in the past.
