gender, political discourse and social welfare in russia: three case studies

Canadian Slavonic Papers

Gender, Political Discourse and Social Welfare in Russia: Three Case StudiesAuthor(s): Andrea ChandlerSource: Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 51, No. 1 (March 2009),pp. 3-24Published by: Canadian Association of SlavistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40871352 .

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Andrea Chandler

Gender, Political Discourse and Social Welfare in Russia: Three Case Studies1

Abstract: In Russia, post-communist reforms to state social benefit policies have shown contradictory views of gender. On the one hand, reform showed a desire to promote gender equality between individuals, a view in which men and women alike were considered autonomous citizens. On the other hand, there was an impulse to consider women as a needy group dependent on special help from the state. This paper examines three related areas of policy: pronatalist policy, child welfare benefits, and old age pensions, in order to reveal unresolved issues in Russian social policies towards women and children.

It is commonly recognized that the transition from communism has been hard on women. In the 1990s, scholarly work argued that since the collapse of Soviet- type regimes, East European and former Soviet countries have seen a reduction in women's political power, cutbacks in social services, and reduced economic opportunities for women.2 In addition, some authors pointed to increases in acts of coercion, exploitation or harassment against women from within society in various post-communist contexts3; other experts have argued that new abortion

This is the revised version of a paper originally presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association on June 2 2005. I presented some of the early ideas on which this paper was based in a Brown-Bag talk entitled "From Pensions to Pronatalism: Hypotheses on Gender, Political Discourse and Social Welfare in Russia" at the Institute of European and Russian Studies, Carleton University, on November 24 2004. 1 am grateful for the comments I received from those in attendance. Portions of this paper draw on research that was funded by a Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, awarded in 1999, on the topic of "Democratization, Policy Change and Social Rights in the Post-Communist Era: Causes and Consequences of Russia's Pension Reform Crisis." The revised version of the paper draws also on research funded by another Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, entitled "Gender, Identity and Social Policy in Post-Communist Russian Political Discourse, 1990 to present," awarded in 2006. Finally, I am grateful for the comments of three anonymous reviewers. Peggy Watson, "The Rise of Masculinism in Eastern Europe," New Left Review 198

(March/April 1993): 71-92; Georgina Waylen, "Women and Democratization: Conceptualizing Gender Relations in Transition Politics," World Politics 46.3 (1994): 327-354; Susan Gal and Gail Kligman, The Politics of Gender After Socialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). Daina Stukuls, "Body of the Nation: Mothering, Prostitution and Women's Place in

Postcommunist Latvia," Slavic Review 58.3 (1999): 537-558; Lene Hansen, "Bosnia and

Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slavistes Vol. LI, No. 1, March 2009



4 Andrea Chandler

policies in countries such as Poland impose new restrictions and hardships on women.4 The scholarly literature offered three reasons for this apparent decline in the status of women. The first explanation focused on the political dynamics of anticommunist nationalism, positing that conservative political parties and organized religion have increasingly shaped a political discourse which has sought to discourage women from stepping outside of their traditional roles as wives and mothers.5 The second school of thought held that the neglect of women's interests in state priorities during the general tumult of the post- communist transition adversely affected women.6 A third view emphasized the role of capitalist market forces in disadvantaging women.7 Yet some authors reject blanket assertions that the transition has always worked to the detriment of women, pointing to particular instances where educated, enterprising and resilient women have fared better than many men.8

the Construction of Security," International Feminist Journal of Politics 3.1 (2001): 55- 75; Victor Malarek, The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2003); Cynthia Werner, "Women, Marriage and the Nation-State: The Rise of Nonconsensual Bride Kidnapping in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan," in The Transformation of Central Asia: States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence, edited by Pauline Jones Luone (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004) 59-89. 4 For example Susan Gal, "Gender in the Post-Socialist Transition: The Abortion Debate

in Hungary," East European Politics and Societies 8.2 (Spring 1994): 256-286; Eva Maleck-Lewy and Myra Marx Ferrée, "Talking about Women and Wombs: The Discourse on Abortion and Reproductive Rights in the GDR During and After the Wende," in Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life after Socialism, edited by Susan Gal and Gail Kligman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); Janine P. Hole, "The Purest Democrat: Fetal Citizenship and Subjectivity in the Construction of Democracy in Poland," Signs 29.3 (Spring 2004): 755-782. Peggy Watson, "The Rise of Masculinism in Eastern Europe," New Left Review 198

(March/April 1993): 71-82; Barbara Einhorn and Charlotte Sever, "Gender and Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe," International Feminist Journal of Politics 5.2 (August 2003): 163-190; Katarzyna Rukszto, "Making Her into a 'Woman': The Creation of Citizen-Entrepreneur in Capitalist Poland," Women 's Studies International Forum 20.1 (1997): 103-112; Katherine Verdery, "From Parent-State to Family Patriarchs: Gender and Nation in Contemporary Eastern Europe," East European Politics and Societies 8.2 (Spring 1994): 225-255. For example, Susan Gal and Gail Kligman, The Politics of Gender After Socialism

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). For example, Daina Stukuls, "Body of the Nation: Mothering, Prostitution and

Women's Place in Postcommunist Latvia," Slavic Review 58.3 (Fall 1999): 537-558; Barbara Einhorn, Cinderella Goes to Market: Citizenship, Gender and Women's Movements in East Central Europe (London: Verso, 1993). 8 Eva Fodor, "Gender in Transition: Unemployment in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia,"

East European Politics and Societies 11.3 (Fall 1997): 470-500; Ludmila Popkova, "Women's Political Activism in Russia: The Case of Samara," in Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition, edited by Kathleen Kuehnast and Carol Nechemias (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004) 172-194; Susan A. Crate, "The Gendered



Gender, Political Discourse and Social Welfare in Russia 5

Russia seems to be no exception to the post-communist pattern; high unemployment rates, the growth of female poverty, lessened access to child care facilities, and the decline of female representation have all been identified as features of the Russian political landscape.9 Because of the relative inaction of the state in matters of gender equality, much of the literature on women and politics in Russia has focused on women as an input into the political system -

including women's representation in the political system, the role of NGOs and women's groups. 10 Other works have examined women as a dependent variable - the effect of the socioeconomic transition on women in the evolving market economy.11

What is less developed in the literature is a substantive discussion of the causal relationship between political discourse on gender on the one hand, and the content of policy affecting women on the other hand. Indeed, relatively little has been written about the role of the formal political arena in shaping or

Nature of Vilui Sakha Post-Soviet Adaptation," in Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition, edited by Kathleen Kuehnast and Carol Nechemias (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Universitv Press, 2004) 127-145. 9 See, for example, Jeni Klugman and Albert Motivans, "Single Parents and Child

Welfare in the New Russia," in Single Parents and Child Welfare in the New Russia, Jeni edited by Klugman and Albert Motivans (Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave, 2001) 15; Branko Milanovic, Inequality and Poverty During the Transition from Planned to Market Economy (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1998); Human Rights Watch, Women's Rights Project, Russia: Neither Jobs nor Justice. State Discrimination against Women in Russia, 7.5 (March 1995).

See Valerie Sperling, Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia: Engendering Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Valerie Sperling, Myra Marx Ferrée and Barbara Risman, "Constructing Global Feminism: Transnational Advocacy Networks and Russian Women's Activism," Signs 26.4 (2001): 1155-1186; Julie Hemment, "Global Civil Society and the Costs of Belonging: Defining Violence Against Women in Russia," Signs 29.3 (Spring 2004): 815-840; James Richter, "Evaluating Western Assistance to Russian Women's Organizations," in The Power and Limits of NGOs: A Critical Look at Building Democracy in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, edited by Sarah E. Mendelson and John K. Glenn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Vicki L. Hesli, Ha-Lyong Jung, William M. Reisinger and Arthur H. Miller, "The Gender Divide in Russian Politics: Attitudinal and Behavioural Considerations," Women and Politics 22.2 (2001): 41-80; Robert G. Moser, "Electoral Systems and Women's Representation in Russia," in Unexpected Outcomes: Electoral Systems, Political Parties and Representation in Russia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001) 32-55.

See, for example, Hilary Pilkington, ed. Gender, Generation and Identity in Contemporary Russia (London: Routledge, 1996) 95-120; Anastasia Posadskaia, et al., Women in Russia: A New Era in Russian Feminism (London: Verso, 1994); Susan A. Crate, "The Gendered Nature of Vilui Sakha Post-Soviet Adaptation," in Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition, edited by Kathleen Kuehnast and Carol Nechemias (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004) 127-145.




6 Andrea Chandler

reflecting gender politics within the state, and rarely have scholars interested in gender examined in depth the content of Russian political discourse. This is perhaps because of an assumption that mainstream politics in Russia has neglected issues relevant to women and gender. Upon empirical examination, social policy in Russia demonstrates that complex and contradictory messages about gender equality permeate political discourse. This paper will explore three particular issues of social policy to illustrate the complexity in the Russian political arena, and will reveal the difficulty of making pat generalizations about gender dynamics in a changing Russia.

With this paper, I will explore the state's role in the politics of gender in Russia. Although women's equality has been accorded a relatively low ranking among political equalities, the arena of social policy has been an area of considerable change and controversy in Russian reforms in recent years. Social welfare is an important area to look at in assessing changes in gender equality. As R.W. Connell argues, the structure and content of a state's social policies are extremely important in revealing the state's gender politics.12 State policies designed to support motherhood and children are particular importance, according to Jane Jenson.13 1 examine gendered political discourse in three areas of social policy in Russia: abortion policy; state welfare benefits offered to parents of children (maternity leave, parental leave, and child allowances); and old age pension reform. I consider the ways in which political discourse offers competing and sometimes contradictory versions of women's rights and gender equality. Political discourse, a concept pioneered by Michel Foucault and others,14 will be defined here as the ideas and priorities expressed on a particular subject within the political realm, over time. The paper will draw on political discourse as expressed in such texts as official documents, legislation, media articles, and Russian-language secondary literature. Stenographic records of the Duma (lower house of the Russian parliament) will be given special attention as an especially rich source, as throughout the 1990s the Duma has been the principal forum for articulating social policy debate. It is sometimes argued that one cannot attach too much importance to legal norms of equality that are

R. W. Connell, "The State, Gender and Sexual Politics: Theory and Appraisal," Theory and Society 19.5 (1990): 507-544.

Jane Jenson, "Gender and Reproduction, or Babies and the State," in Feminism in Action: Studies in Political Economy, edited by M. Patricia Connelly and Pat Armstrong (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 1992) 201-236.

The concept of "discourse" was pioneered by Michel Foucault and others as the evolution of a body of ideas that define a particular set of values and principles, posit their truth, and propose that society be organized in such a way as to put these values and principles into practice. As Foucault argued, the use of language in discourse reflects and reifies a particular power structure. See, for example, Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (New York: Vintage, 1973) xv-xvii.




incompletely enforced or realized in the Russian context. ] 5 Although this is a valid point, researchers sometimes dismiss the value of legislation and legislative debate as primary research sources, missing a valuable opportunity to examine the exchange of political ideas. In this paper, such sources are treated as data that reveal the evolution of discourse on gender and social welfare.

The goal of this paper is not to identify precisely how the articulation of specific views by particular actors led to concrete policy outcomes. Such an endeavour would be interesting, but it also would contain an inherent assumption that legislative outcomes in Russia are the result of rational and purposive action in the public sphere, which does not necessarily fit the empirical evidence of social welfare policy-making in that country. By contrast, a discourse approach can be valuable in three specific ways: first, it can identify the values, meanings and ideas imparted in political debate; second, it can identify common assumptions across the political spectrum; and finally, it can reveal areas of political inaction, vacillation, indecisiveness and disinterest. In the post-communist transition, perceptions about politics are changing; actors' views and assumptions are often undergoing change, and often reveal contradictions. Such contradictions and ambivalences can lead to confused and inconsistent policies. Russian laws and social policies are important sources for understanding gender relations, insofar as they reflect contestation over how to realize equality in the post-communist environment; in turn, this contestation can have practical consequences when social policies are ambiguous or contradictory.

Constitutionally, men and women have equal rights in Russia, but social policy continues to offer women various forms of special protection and benefits that recognize their role as mothers. For decades, women who bear children have been granted maternity leaves; while caring for small children, they are granted parental benefits as well as protection from employment duties that might interfere with their responsibilities to their children. They could stay at home with small children without losing their jobs, and without penalty to the old age pensions they would eventually collect. For the most part, these benefits historically were unavailable to men. This dichotomy, between the state guaranteeing equality while promoting the notion that women claim special benefits, dated back to Soviet times. The founder of the Soviet state, V.l. Lenin, argued that the socialist system should free women from being compelled to work long hours under dangerous conditions, and should establish a strong

Kathryn Hendley, "Rewriting the Rules of the Game in Russia: The Neglected Issue of the Demand for Law," East European Constitutional Review 18.4 (1999): 89-95; Peter H. Solomon, "Vladimir Putin's Quest for a Strong State," Munk Centre Monitor (Winter- spring 2005): 1,6-7.




8 Andrea Chandler

network of services to support mothers and children.16 Furthermore, the Soviet state was pronatalist, and social policy included the goal of encouraging more births while providing supports to mothers.17 So to some extent, Soviet social policy was directed at women, who were assumed to be mothers. Fatherhood, on the other hand, was practically invisible in Soviet discourse, and the state did little to encourage men to exercise their family responsibilities.18 So the question becomes: would the collapse of communism lead to a rethinking of social policies affecting parents and children? Would the rights and protections that the state offered women change? Since Russian reformers made no systematic effort to confront these questions head-on, policy change occurred piecemeal and presented contradictions.

This paper will focus on three case studies, each of which will reveal something different about gender in Russian social policy. Pronatalist policy, including the state's orientation towards abortion, is an obvious choice because policy in this area shows a dramatic change from the beginning of the transition to the present day. Recent efforts on the part of the state to encourage women to have more children are, to a large extent, reactions to the social problems that accompanied the early post-communist transition. The second case for discussion is benefits for parents and children, which reveal the contradictions and doubts apparent in the uncertain effort to adopt a new social welfare framework consistent with a market economy. Finally, we will examine the status of women in old-age pension reform, a case study, which, compared to the other cases, demonstrates a greater recognition of women's contributions to society, but which also sends mixed messages about the equality of women and men.

Abortion and Pronatalist Policy There is a wealth of scholarly literature documenting how post-communist countries in Eastern Europe (especially, but not exclusively Poland) have embraced pronatalist policies, including restrictions on abortion.19 Religious and

V. I. Lenin, "On the Emancipation of Women," in The Lenin Anthology, edited by Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton, 1975) 679-699.

See, for example, Ellen Jones and Fred R. Grupp, Modernization, Value Change and Fertility in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987). 1 8

See, for example, John Haynes, New Soviet Man: Gender and Masculinity in Stalinist Soviet Cinema (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003) 149; Lilia Kaganovsky, "How the Soviet Man was Unmade," Slavic Review 63.3 (Fall 2004): 577- 596.

Janine P.Holc, "The Purest Democrat: Fetal Citizenship and Subjectivity in the Construction of Democracy in Poland," Signs 29.3 (Spring 2004): 755-782; Katherine Verdery, "From Parent-State to Family Patriarchs: Gender and Nation in Contemporary Eastern Europe," East European Politics and Societies 8.2 (Spring 1994): 225-255; Irene Dolling, Daphne Hahn and Sylka Scholz, "Birth Strike in the New Federal States: Is




nationalist discourses have framed these policies, which have been introduced by socially conservative politicians. In 2003, the Russian government, with little advance warning or public discussion, abruptly reduced the circumstances under which women could legally seek second-trimester abortions in the country.20 This development seemed to confirm the prediction, advanced by some observers in the 1 990s, that conservative religious forces were gaining influence in Russia, and were attempting to undo some the social policies that were widely perceived as advancing the rights of women.21 The restrictions on abortion were surprising because Russia seemed to lack the variables present in other post- communist countries that have changed their abortion policy. To elaborate, Russia is a country without a strong Catholic tradition; its extreme nationalists and social conservatives are not particularly unified; and the Russian political arena at that time seemed too preoccupied with other issues, such as market reform, the war in Chechnya, and the trends of authoritarianism under Putin, to be interested in abortion policy.

In the Soviet Union, policies towards abortion had a reputation for being relatively liberal, but secondary literature argues that the availability of abortion has always been precarious, the attitudes of authorities ambivalent, and that to the extent that abortion was permitted it was generally for pragmatic reasons.22 Soviet authorities banned abortion in 1936, partly because of fears that it was

Sterilization an Act of Resistance?" in Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life After Socialism, edited by Susan Gal and Gail Kligman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) 1 18-147.

Postanovlenie Pravitel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, "O perechne sotsial'nykh pokazanii dlia iskusstvennogo preryvaniia beremennosti," in Sobranie zakonodatel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii 33 (18 August 2003): 8126. 21

Katrina van den Heuvel, "Right-to-Lifers Hit Russia," The Nation 257.14 (November 1993): 489-492; Ellen Dorsch and Jen Peterson, "Abortion Foes Seek New Ground in Russia," Surviving Together 15.3 (1997): 17-18; "Gag Rule Sidelines Russia's Pro- Choice Groups During Abortion Rights Debate," Reproductive Freedom News 12.10 (October 1993): 3-4.

Wendy Goldman, "Women, Abortion and the State, 1917-36," in Russia's Women: Accomodation, Resistance, Transformation, edited by Barbara Evans Clements, Barbara Alpern Engel and Christine D. Worobec (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) 243-266; David L. Hoffman, "Mothers in the Motherland: Stalinist Pronatalism in its Pan-European Context," Journal of Social History 34.1 (2000): 35-54; "Russian Federation. Abortion Policy," in Abortion Policies: A Global Review (UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2002) 55-58. <http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion> (Accessed 28 January 2009).




1 0 Andrea Chandler

lowering the birthrate.23 After Stalin's death, abortion again became legal, a policy reversal driven by the desire to reduce widespread illegal abortions.24

Pronatalist tendencies have emerged in post-communist Russia. First of all, beginning in the late 1 990s, there was a growing attention in the political arena to the "demographic crisis" (the high rate of deaths relative to births since the collapse of communism), which was increasingly perceived as a national security issue.25 As Michèle Rivkin-Fish argued, post-communist Russia's trend of net population decline increasingly became perceived by politicians as not only an empirical social problem in itself, but also a symbol of the weakness of national power.26 Upon his election as President, Vladimir Putin himself began to present Russia's low birth rate as a cause for concern requiring attention from the state.27 A second trend was that the Russian Orthodox Church showed a growing interest in discouraging abortion and in presenting it as an immoral act.28 Admittedly, abortion rates are high in Russia; one survey suggested that women averaged between 2.5 to 5 abortions in their lifetimes.29 Government statistics reported that abortion declined 38% between 1995 and 2005.30

These trends provide the context for a series of policy steps that had consequences for women. In 1997, in approving the 1998 budget, the Duma cut off funding to Russia's national Family Planning program - in effect, greatly limiting the resources the government would allocate for making birth control available and raising public awareness about its proper use.31 The "Family

Susan Gross Solomon, "The Demographic Argument in Soviet Debates over the Legalization of Abortion in the 1920s," Clio Medica 23 (1993): 140-170.

Michèle Rivkin-Fish, "Sexuality in Russia: Defining Pleasure and Danger for a Fledgling Democratic Society," Social Science and Medicine 49.6 (September 1999): 803. 25

See, for example, Julie DaVanzo, Olga Oliker and Clifford Grammich, "A Shrinking Russia," Atlantic Monthly (July/August 2003): 84-85.

Michèle Rivkin-Fish, Women's Health in Post-Soviet Russia: The Politics of Intervention (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005) 1-2. 27

Vladimir Putin, "Poslanie Federal'nomu Sobraniiu Rossiiskoi Federatsii," (16 May 2003): <http://www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2003/05/44623.shtml> (Accessed 29 January 2009). 28

See, for example, Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate, "XII. Problems of Bioethics," in Basic Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church [n.d.]: <http://www.mospat.ru/index.php?mid=192> (Accessed 28 January 2009). 29

Barbara Entwisle and Polina Kozyreva, "New Estimates of Induced Abortion in Russia Γ Studies in Family Planning 28.1 (March 1997): 14-23.

Viktoria Sakevich, "Abort ili planirovanie sem'i?" Demoskop weekly 5-18 March 2007: <http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0279/tema01.php> (Accessed 23 September 2008).

Stephen M. Massey, "Russia's Maternal and Infant Health Crisis: Socioeconomic Implications and the Path Forward," Policy Brief 1.9 (EastWest Institute, December



Gender, Political Discourse and Social Welfare in Russia 1 1

Planning Program" had been established, along with a number of other state programs aimed at children and prenatal care, as part of President Yeltsin's "Children of Russia" program.32 This program was praised internationally and some thought that it had helped to bring down abortion rates in Russia.33 In fact, one of the explicit mandates of the Family Planning Program was to reduce abortion by preventing unplanned pregnancy.34 Studies have suggested that Russian women show relatively weak understanding of how to use birth control effectively, 35 and that many doctors consider lack of understanding and inadequate supplies of contraceptives to be significant factors in the high abortion rate.36

However, in the Duma debate, one deputy, who claimed to have received much correspondence and petitions on the matter, criticized the Family Planning Program in the harshest terms, as promoting abortion, "genocide," and depressing the birthrate, as well as encouraging young people to condone sex. She argued that it was incongruous to spend government money on sex education and contraception when there was a lack of funds available to support child welfare benefits. 37 The Duma voted to give the funds to another government program aimed at improving the health of pregnant women and babies. Although there was an attempt to defend the Family Planning Program as promoting the birth of wanted children, not encouraging abortion, and to defend women's health, the defence was weak and was cut off by the speaker of parliament. 38 This debate was notable in that the Duma's social policy

2002): <http://www.ewi.info/pdf/volumel issue9.pd£> (Accessed 9 March 2009). 32

""

"Prezidentskaia programma 'Deti Rossii' na 1996-1999," Rossiiskaia gazeta 28 February 1996:4.

Liese Sherwood-Fabre, Howard Goldberg and Valentina Bodrova, "The Impact of an Integrated Family Planning Program in Russia," Evaluation Review 26.2 (April 2002): 190-212. 34

"Osnovnye napravleniia gosudarstvennoi sotsial'noi politiki po uluchshenii polozheniia detei ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii do 2000 g. (natsional'nyi plan deistvii ν interesakh detei) utverzhdeny ukazom prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 14 sentiabriia 1995 g." Rossiiskaia zazeta ) 21 September 1995): 3-5. 35

Amy Rankin-Williams, "Post-Soviet Contraceptive Practices and Abortion Rates in St. Petersburg, Russia," Health Care for Women International 22 (2001): 699-710; L.D. Dymchenko and Lynn Clark, "Challenges and Opportunities: The Health of Women and Newborns in the Russian Federation," Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing 16.3 (December 2002): 13.

A. Ph. Visser, Ν. Bruyniks and L. Remennick, "Family Planning in Russia: Experiences of Gynecologists," Advances in Contraception 9.2 (June 1993): 95.

S. I. Naichukova, Remarks in Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 153 (5 February 1998): 14. 38

Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 153 (5 February 1998): 14-16. Speaking in favour of the suspension of funding: S. I. Naichukova (Agrarian party) and




1 2 Andrea Chandler

committee as well as the Duma's committee on women, the family and youth, supported the suspension of funding. Russian doctors and public health officials protested the decision.39

A related but separate development was the appearance of fragmentary reports about reduced access and increased expense for abortions in regions throughout the Russian Federation.40 In 1 994, the government announced that state medical insurance would no longer pay for abortions performed for other than medical or valid "social" reason.41 Finally, in August 2003, the government passed a decision to limit the circumstances under which second-trimester abortions are permitted. Abortions past the first trimester would henceforth be permitted for medical reasons, and for a few other circumstances, such as in the case of pregnancy as a result of rape.42 Previously, second-trimester abortions had also been permitted when a woman was single, economically disadvantaged, unemployed, lacked adequate housing or lacked permanent residency status.43 To what extent are these trends linked, and do they indicate a systematic attempt to introduce a pronatalist, pro-life policy?

The evidence suggests that efforts to restrict abortions are rather isolated and haphazard, even though they admittedly pose hardships for women. In President Vladimir Putin's April 2005 Address to the Federal Assembly, he spoke of the birthrate as a "national problem" and emphasized incentives rather than sanctions to alleviate it. Said Putin, "We need to make being a mother and being a father more prestigious and create conditions that will encourage people

L. N. Shvets (committee on women, the family and youth); speaking in defense of the program: E.F. Lakhova. 39

Natalya Babyasan, "Freedom or Life," Izvestiia 26 February 1999: 5, translated in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press 5 1 . 1 2 (2 1 April 1 999): 1 4, 6. 40

For example, one medium reported that in Borovskii, Tiumen' oblast, abortions for non-medical reasons abruptly ceased in 2002 on the initiative of the mayor and local duma. Sergei Avdeev, "Zhertvy aborta," Izvestiia 5 July 2003: 1. Also, Elena Aleksandrovna Ballaeva, "Situatsiia s sobliudeniem reproduktivnykh prav zhenshchin ν g. Rybinske," in Prava zhenshchin ν Rossii: Issledovanie real'noi praktiki ikh sobliudeniia i massovogo soznaniia, edited by M.M. Malysheva (Moscow: Moskovskii tsentr gendernykh issledovanii, 1998): 71-110. 41

Dmitry Frolov, "The Concern of the Fatherland: Bureaucrats Show Concern for Multiplying the Nation," Segodnya 10 March 1994: 9, translated in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press 46. 1 0 (6 April 1 994): 1 6.

Other than medical reasons, the permitted grounds for abortion would be rape, incarceration, death or disability of the husband, or a court order determining against a woman's parental abilities. Postanovlenie Pravitel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, "O perechne sotsial'nykh pokazanii dlia iskusstvennogo preryvaniia beremennosti," Sobranie zakonodatel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii 33 (18 August 2003): 8126.

Andrei Morozov, "Attempt to Combat Illegal Abortions," Nezavisimaia gazeta 18 July 1996: 6, translated in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press 48.31 (28 August 1996): 11.




to give birth and raise children."44 On occasions when abortion is discussed directly in the Duma, proponents of banning abortion are generally isolated voices, while the need to maintain a relatively liberal abortion policy still finds active defenders. For example, in September 2003, the Duma rejected a draft law on the rights of the unborn child (which would have restricted abortions). The law was opposed by the Duma's committee on women and the family, and by the Duma's committee on health.45 Another draft law proposing to abolish most legal abortions, introduced by flamboyant politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, failed in April 2004.46

In fact the notion of a "woman's right to choose" is not just a Western concept - it has resonance in Russia, and it finds some sympathy in the Duma. It exists in law: a 1993 "Law on Citizens' Health Protection" included Article 36, "Artificial Termination of Pregnancy," which declares that "Every woman has the right to make an independent decision about motherhood." The law further states that a woman can elect to have an abortion without restriction for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy; for "social reasons" up to 22 weeks; and for medical reasons at any point in pregnancy.47 Passed in 1993, the law can hardly be considered to be a relic of communism, and has been invoked in the Duma to present abortion as a woman's legal right.48 Public opinion polls, of both experts and the general population, show strong support for a woman's right to end her pregnancy.49 The main basis for defending abortion rights is pragmatic: given the poor state of contraception availability and awareness in Russia, restricting abortion would lead only to the negative health and population consequences of illegal abortions. Doctors, some of whom are the most vocal defenders of liberal

44 Vladimir Putin, Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,

April 25, 2005: <http://www.kadastr.ru/documents/message_to_Federal_Assembly/ message to federal assembly rf 2005/> (Accessed 29 January 2009).

Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 251 (9 November 2003): 44-47. Mikhail Vinogradov and Lia Sorokina, "Father of the Nation, or how to Produce a Lot

of Children," Izvestiia 6 April 2001: 3, translated in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press 56.12 (21 April 2004).

Law "Ob okhrane zdorov'ia grazhdan," passed 22 July 1993, Vedomosti Soveta Narodnykh Deputatov Rossiiskoi Federatsii i Verkhovnogo Soveta Rossiiskoi Federatsii 33 (19 August 1993): 2289-2324. 48

For example, V.l. Krutova, Remarks in Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 251 (9 November 2003): 45.

A survey of 89 experts showed that 92% thought that abortion should be available on demand. V. Borisov, A. Sinel'nikov and V. Arkhangel'skii, "Aborty i planirovanie sem'i ν Rossii: Pravovye i nravstvennye aspekty (opros ekspertov)," Voprosy statistiki 3 (1997): 77-78; 67% of women and 50% of men opposed the imposition of any new restrictions on abortion, according to V.V. Bodrova, "Reproduktivnoe povedenie kak faktor depopuliatsii ν Rossii," Sotsiologicheskoe issledovanie 6.218 (2002): 96-102.




1 4 Andrea Chandler

abortion policies, have been known to make this argument.50 However, the issue of funding abortions and contraceptives is another matter. Amid scarce resources, politicians are not necessarily willing to give a budgetary priority to maintaining low-cost abortion services. But nor are politicians willing necessarily to use budgetary means to support pronatalist policies. An attempt to create a tax on childless people to be used to fund child welfare benefits failed in the Duma.51

In 2005 and 2006, Russian leaders showed a greater concern with the country's declining population, and began to adopt a series of measures intended to increase the country's birthrate. Among these measures, there was recognition of the importance of improving prenatal care. One measure that was adopted was the "childbirth certificate" ["rodovoi sertifikaf' program, implemented in 2006. Under the certificate program, health care institutions that provided consistent prenatal care to pregnant women, up to and including childbirth, would receive additional funding for each pregnancy that resulted in a live birth.52 One leader suggested that the "childbirth certificate" policy might have another effect, to serve as a disincentive to abortion:

Take the birth certificate.... A woman comes and says: I am pregnant, eight weeks. And the doctor sends her to have an abortion. That is, does she explain it to the woman that abortion is hazardous, that if the woman is pregnant for the first time, she may lose the ability to give birth to children. No, no such explanation. It is therefore necessary to get doctors interested in this respect. For example, part of the maternity certificate could go as remuneration, while the other part would be used for the acquisition of hardware, the equipment.53

Of course, one wonders about the impact that such policies might have about women's abilities to make reproductive choices. Indeed, at least one region claimed that abortions had declined since the introduction of the certificates.54

Natal'ia Korygina, "Vsem rozhat1!" Izvestiia 19 August 2003: 8. Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 224 (7 March 2003): 24-28.

52 Press-sluzhby Minzdravsotsrazvitiia Rossii, "Rodovye sertifikaty uzhe vydaiutsiia,"

Meditsinskaia gazeta 1 February 2006: 5. Press-sluzhby Minzdravsotsrazvitiia Rossii, "Rodovoi sertifikat: Vse, chto o nem nado znat'," Meditsinskaia gazeta 15 March 2006:4.

"Press Conference with Yekaterina Lakhova, Chair of the State Duma Committee for Women, Family and Children," Russia Federal News Service May 16, 2006. Found in LexisNexis Academic database. 54

Sergei Krutov, "V roddomakh poveselee? (Altai Krai)," Meditsinskaia gazeta 2 February 2007: 2.




Benefits for Mothers, Children and Parents The context for understanding recent pronatalist trends in Russia is the growing concern that emerged in the 1990s about the economic situation of children in Russia. As of then, the state paid maternity benefits to women for 70 days before and 70 days after the birth of a child, a benefit paid upon the birth of the child, and parental leave benefits to parents who take time out of the workforce to care for children up to age 18 months. The state also pays parents a small monthly allowance for each child. Extra benefits are available to single mothers. Maternity leave and parental leave benefits are paid from the social insurance system.55 These benefits are very low, and in the 1990s there were chronic arrears in paying these benefits on time. Eventually the government was criticized for neglecting these benefits, to the detriment of women and children. Although some East European countries promoted radical reforms that reduced parental leave benefits,56 Russia introduced no major changes in legislation until quite recently and continued (on paper) to have relatively expansive if meagre benefits for maternity and parental leave.

In the mid to late 1990s, there were two trends at work in child welfare benefit policy: first, there was an impulse to make mothers and fathers equal for the purposes of claiming parental and child welfare benefits (maternity leave remained available for women only). This impulse was inconsistently implemented, but it nonetheless reflected a desire among some to create a more level playing field between men and women. But the discourse also honoured the tradition that the state should protect mothers and motherhood. In 1 996, the government outlined its family policy. It recognized the importance of supporting working mothers and for facilitating the return to the workforce of women who had children. However, it also went further in affirming the importance of "extending to fathers the rights to the benefits associated with raising children that are presently allocated primarily to women and mothers."57

But in practice mothers and children are often regarded as dependent groups who need state protection. In 1991, even before the introduction of the "shock therapy" market reform program, the Russian parliament anticipated that certain groups would be "especially in need of social protection" during the reform transition, and that the state should adopt programs to protect these groups from unemployment. Single parents, parents with many children, and women with

"Polozhenie ο poriadke naznacheniia i vyplaty gosudarstvennogo posobiia grazhdanam, imeiushchim detei," Ross Us kaia gazeta 13 September 1995: 4-5.

Joanna Goven, "New Parliament, Old Discourse? The Parental Leave Debate in Hungary," in Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life after Socialism, edited by Susan Gal and Gail Kligman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) 286-306.

"Osnovnye napravleniia gosudarstvennoi semeinoi politiki," Rossiiskaia gazeta 21 May 1996:4.




1 6 Andrea Chandler

small children were prominent among these groups.58 On 5 May 1992, a presidential decree called for the regions within the Russian federal system to identify large families in need of social support, and grant them extra social benefits such as reduced utility fees, prescription drugs, free public transport, school lunches, and garden plots.59 It is interesting that such measures would call for creation of new state programs to support these groups, accepting in advance the likelihood of their marginal ization, rather than focusing on taking proactive steps to facilitate their adaptation and prevent discrimination in the workforce.

Social policy also tended to see mothers as being primarily responsible for children. Although this may coincide with the reality in many families, such policies can be problematic if they give women obligations that do not apply to men. In 1997, the Duma approved a document on gender equality that decried the tendencies of social policy towards children to recognize only mothers as parents, and to provide legal "protections" for working mothers, saying that such policies only contributed to discrimination against women. (For example, there were legal restrictions on the types of work open to pregnant women and mothers of small children). The document called for policy to recognize the rights and responsibilities of both parents, noting that the interests of pregnant and breastfeeding women in the workplace could be protected without women facing restrictions to which men were not subjected.60

However, the 2001 Labour Code again affirmed the special status of mothers and maintained restrictions on their rights in the workplace, in ways that did not affect fathers. Pregnant women and women with children under three were not allowed to work at night or on holidays and weekends (articles 96, 113). Women are also to be excluded from certain kinds of difficult and dangerous jobs (article 253). These restrictions seemed unnecessary in light of the code's stipulation that pregnant women or women with small children have the right to receive modifications of their duties or workload upon request (article 254) and that nursing mothers have the right to take extra breaks in order to nurse their children (article 257). In addition, although some parts of the Code mention fathers as having the same rights to parental leave as mothers, other parts of the Code specifically mentioned mothers, rather than parents, of small

58 Zakon RSFSR, "O zaniatosti naseleniia ν RSFSR," (19 April 1991) Vedomosti S'ezda

Narodnvkh Deputatov RSFSR i Verkhovnozo Soveta RSFSR 18 (2 May 1991): 516-533. 59

Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiiskoi Federatsii "O merakh po sotsial'noi podderzhke mnogodetnykh semei," Vedomosti S'ezda Narodnykh Deputatov Rossiiskoi Federatsii i Verkhovnogo Soveta Rossiiskoi Federatsii 19 (14 May 1992): 1375-1376.

"O kontseptsii zakonotvorcheskoi deiatel'nosti po obespecheniiu ravnykh prav i ravnykh vozmozhnostei muzhchin i zhenshchin," Vedomosti Federal'nogo Sobraniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii 35 (1 1 December 1997): 2727, 2730.




children as entitled to leave (for example, article 263). 61 In short, the state's recognition of the equal rights and responsibilities of both parents was inconsistent.

A second trend was that throughout the course of the 1990s, the plight of children in Russia, and the arrears in child welfare benefits, gained increasing attention from the legislature. In February 1999, the Minister of Finance told the Duma that all but four of Russia's eighty-nine regions were delayed in their payment of child welfare benefits to recipients.62 Some deputies in the Duma regarded the lack of state resources for children's needs as a serious problem and as a contributory factor to the country's declining population. They demanded that the arrears be addressed and that policies to support families and children be strengthened. For example, in 1999 the Duma passed a resolution that called on the government to improve the payment of child benefits, to draw up a plan for ending arrears, and to grant funds to regional governments specifically for this purpose.63 However, the discussion of the state's role in supporting child benefits was largely reactive, and the focus on the financing of cash benefits overshadowed the discussion of ways in which the state could improve the conditions of families and children. In 1999, a new reform was passed which ended universality for the child allowance benefit; if parents received an average income in excess of a specific monthly ceiling, they were no longer eligible to claim the child benefit.64

A final point about the child benefit debate is that it is explicitly linked with pronatalism and with the debate over state priorities. The child benefit crisis provided the context for the Russian debates on abortion. A desire to increase the birthrate, for the benefit of Russian society - as an instrumental goal for the future - is present in the debates. There seemed to be a common view that one of the best ways to support the birthrate is to improve the size and availability of cash benefits that the state provides parents and children.65 However, this

"Trudovoi kodeks Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Vedomosti Federal'nogo Sobraniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii 5(11 February 2002): 241, 334-335, 337-338.

Gosudarstvennaia Duma. Stenogramma zasedanii 238 ('2 February 1999): 37-39.

Postanovlenie Gosudarstvennoi Dumy, "O merakh po uluchsheniiu polozheniia s vyplatoi ezhemesiachnykh posobii grazhdanam, imeiushchim detei," Vedomosti Federal'nogo Sobraniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii 22 (1 August 1999): 67-68. 64

Law "O vnesenii izmeneniia ν stat'iu 16 Federal'nogo zakona 4o gosudarstvennykh posobiiakh grazhdanam, imeiushchim detei," Vedomosti Federal'nogo Sobraniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii 25 (Ί September 1999): 35-36.

See, for example, A. N. Greshnevikov, remarks in Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 273 (18 June 1999): 15; remarks of Olga Sharapova, Deputy Minister of Health Care, in Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 230 (2 April 2003): 17.




1 8 Andrea Chandler

instrumental goal seems to be less prominent in the discourse than the normative idea that the state is morally obliged to support motherhood and children.66

At the end of 2006, Russia's legislature adopted several new laws that were expressly intended to encourage parents to have more children (as well as to adopt and raise children without parental care).67 These reforms included an expansion of parental leave benefits, as well as a new benefit, the "base maternal (family) capital" (BMK). The BMK is a large lump-sum benefit that is intended to benefit primarily mothers of a second child. Once the child reaches the age of three years, the mother will be eligible to receive the BMK, provided she has fulfilled her legal responsibilities as parent. The benefit can be applied towards any of three purposes: to fund her children's education, to save for her retirement, or to improve her housing.68 These reforms indicate a significant change in social policy priorities, to give the state greater responsibility for parents and children. Such reforms, insofar as they recognize the importance of making work outside the home more compatible with parenthood, have the potential to empower women in society. But the reforms are also ambiguous. Of particular concern is the fact that the BMK law generally favours mothers (birth mothers and adoptive mothers are equally eligible), but only in very specific circumstances are male parents eligible for this benefit.69 The parental leave reforms, on the other hand, continue as before to give mothers and fathers equal eligibility to claim benefits. 70 So the recent reforms indicate unresolved

See, for example, V.A. Butkeev, remarks in Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 273 (18 June 1999): 18; A.V. Apanina, remarks in Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 96 (25 April 1997): 38.

These laws followed on President Vladimir Putin's address to the Russian parliament, the Federal Assembly, in May 2006, where Putin declared the government's attention to try to reverse the country's negative population trends, and proposed expanding social benefits for parents, noting in particular the importance of alleviating the difficulties that mothers faced in maintaining paid employment outside the home. Putin, Vladimir (2006). "Poslanie Federal'nomu Sobraniiu Rossiiskoi Federatsii," <http://www.kremlin.ru/ text/appears/2006/05/105546.shtml> (Accessed 12 May 2006).

Russian Federation Law no. 256-FZ (2006), "O dopolnitel'nykh merakh gosudarstvennoi podderzhki semei, imeiushchikh detei," Rossiiskaia gazeta 31 December 2006: <http://www.rg.ru/2006/12/31/roditelyam-dok.html> (Accessed 9 March 2009).

According to the law, the father can claim the benefit if the mother has died, if the mother has lost her legal status as a parent, if the mother has intentionally harmed her child in a criminal way, or if he is a single adoptive parent. See Russian Federation Law no. 256-FZ, 2006.

Russian Federation Law no. 207-FZ (2006), "O vnesenii izmenenii ν otdel'nye akty Rossiiskoi Federatsii ν chasti gosudarstvennoi podderzhki grazhdan, imeiushchikh detei," Website of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Iskovaia-Pravovaia sistema 5 December: <http://ntc.duma.gov.ru/bpa/docctrl.phtml?bpaid=l&code=129659&rdk=0& nv=0> (Accessed 2 January 2007).




discrepancies in the equality of men and women, and about the share of responsibility for children that the state expects each parent to take.

Women and Pension Reform Old age pension reform is another Russian social policy issue whose political implications for women have been much debated. It also shares with the other two case studies an underlying discourse, in which demographic trends were presented as an underlying structural problem that impelled policy change. For obvious reasons, old age pension reform could not directly advance a pronatalist agenda, and so this makes this case different from the other two cases. However, a key argument for pension reform in the 1 990s was that the shrinking younger generation would mean that a relatively small working population would be called upon to support a large number of pensioners. Therefore, a demographic rationale was presented for the reform, whose major goal was to make the pension system more cost-efficient and self-sustaining.71 The debate on old age pension reform is worth examining also because it revealed discursive understandings relating to the recognition in social policy of women's roles as mothers.

Until recently, the Russian old age pension system observed gender differences. In Soviet times, most old age pensions were granted on the basis of years spent in the workforce, and their size was determined in consideration of a worker's salary upon retirement. Generally, then, one's work history was the main criterion in allocating pensions, and workers were treated equally. However, longstanding principles of Soviet pension policy gave women special consideration relative to men. First, women had the right to retire earlier than men (at the retirement age of 55 instead of 60).72 In new pension laws adopted in 1990, a woman could go on old age pension at age 55 with at least twenty years of service, while a man had to wait until age 60 after twenty-five years on the job. The law also specified that a mother who has brought up five or more children, or a mother who had brought up a disabled child, had the right to go on pension at age 50 provided she had spent fifteen years in the workforce. In addition, disabled women could go on pension younger than disabled men.73 Also, when women took time out of the workforce to care for babies and young

Mikhail Dmitriev, "Sotsial'nye reformy i biudzhetnyi krizis ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii," in Sotsial'naia politika i period perekhoda k rynku: Problemy i resheniia, by Anders Aslund and Mikhail Dmitriev Moscow: Carnegie Centre, 1996) 122-125. 72

"Zakon ο gosudarstvennykh pensiiakh" (1956), in Sotsial'noe obespechenie i strakhovanie ν SSSR, edited by M.L. Zakharov and V.M. Piskov (Moscow: Iuridicheskaia literatura, 1972) 180.

Article 10 and 11, "Zakon RSFSR Ό gosudarstvennykh pensiiakh ν RSFSR'," Vedomosti s'ezda narodnykh deputatov RSFSR i Verkhovnogo Soveta RSFSR 27 (6 December 1990): 457.




20 Andrea Chandler

children, their eligibility for pensions would not be affected. In the 1 990 law, the time that a woman takes out of the workforce, from 70 days before birth up to 3 years for each child (no more than 9 years total) was counted as time worked for pension purposes. 74 These principles reflect Soviet values, which regarded raising children to be Soviet citizens to be of comparable value to society as the contribution of one's labour to the national economy. But it was women, not men, who were assumed to play these childrearing roles and who were provided for in legislation.

The pension reforms proposed in the 1990s threatened these cherished principles, especially the second one; economists V.N. Baskakov and M.E. Baskakova argued that pension reform stood to put women at a disadvantage by giving insufficient recognition to the ways in which women's parenting and caregiving roles affected their work history.75 The Baskakovs also argued that as women tended to be lower paid than men, a move to a pension system based on accumulated contributions from earnings could further lower women's pensions relative to those of men.76 The World Bank's thinking on pension reform, which influenced Russia's reform model as in other countries, was critical of the notion that women and men should have different retirement ages, generally preferring a higher retirement age. Advocates thought these reforms would make pension systems less costly and more efficient.77

Russia's pension reform in the 1990s was based on the social insurance principle, which was gradually phased into the pension system. The social insurance principle posited that each individual should receive a pension that was based on that individual's lifetime contributions into the pension system -

basically on the basis of the social insurance taxes that an individual paid, not on the basis of years worked. A short-lived law passed in 1997, Law FZ-113, was controversial partly because it calculated pensions only on the basis of time spent actively employed in the workforce. This meant that time spent as a student, military conscript, or at home with a child would be discounted in the pension. 78 As Baskakov and Baskakova argued, this had great potential

Zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii, "O gosudarstvennykh pensiiakh ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Article 92, 3 1 1 , in Prakticheskii i nauchnyi kommentarii k Zakonu Rossiiskoi Federatsii ο gosudarstvennykh pensiiakh ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii, edited by M.L. Zakharov and E.G. Tuchkova (Moscow: Bek, 1997).

V. N. Baskakov and M.E. Baskakova, Ο pensiiakh dlia muzhchin i zhenshchin (Moscow: Moskovskii filosovski fond, 1998) 19, 24.

Baskakov and M.E. Baskakova 37, 71. World Bank, Estelle James, et al., Averting the Old Age Crisis: Policies to Protect the

Old and Promote Growth (Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 1994)285-286. 78

The law introduced an ambiguous change by saying that pensions for the periods during a worker's working lifetime but for which the worker paid no social insurance contributions (so-called uninsured periods) would no longer be paid from the Pension




significance for women.79 It is interesting that even though women's issues in other aspects of social policy were relatively neglected in the political arena, the gender-related aspects of the pension reform actually attracted a lot of opposition. In the Duma, deputies actively defended the right of women to a lower pension age than men, and demanded that women who took time out of the workforce to care for children be given credit for this in the pension system. For example, in a 2001 Duma debate, the exclusion of child care time from years spent in the workforce for pension purposes was variously depicted by deputies as unjust, insofar as it was introducing a sudden change; unfair to women, as it had great potential impact on them; and simplistic, insofar as it failed to distinguish between those individuals who chose not to work for their own personal reasons, and those who were forgoing their paid employment in order to do something valuable for society.80 This is one area of policy where members of the Duma seemed interested in defending women's interests, and where they considered it a matter of fairness that women should be given special attention in the pension system.

I also found it intriguing that the discourse never really discussed in detail reasons why women should have the right to retire at a younger age than men. It was simply accepted in political discourse as a given. In the final pension reform passed in 2001, the law continued to allow women to collect a social insurance pension at a younger age than men, provided that they had spent at least five years in the workforce.81 There was however a subtle change to the retirement age which generally went unnoticed. So-called "social pensions," granted as welfare benefits to people who for whatever reason were not able to work enough in their lives to be eligible for pensions, featured a new, raised

Fund but from the federal budget. The law was ambiguous because in effect it said that the Pension Fund was no longer responsible for paying pensions for the time spent in uninsured periods, although it never excluded these periods from counting as time worked for pension purposes. Law FZ-113, "O poriadke ischisleniia i uvelicheniia gosudarstvennykh pensii," Sobranie zakonodatel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii 30 (28 July 1997): 5845. 79

Baskakov and Baskakova, 24. 80

Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenosramma zasedanii 82 (15 March 2001): 21-34. 81

For social insurance pensions, women with at least five years in the workforce could go on pension at age 55, whereas men had to wait until age 60. Women with five or more children who had spent at least fifteen years in the workforce could go on pension at age 50. Federal'nyi zakon "O trudovykh pensiiakh ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Pensiia 12 (December 2001): 11, 15. For "social pensions" (nominal pensions available to people who were unable to collect social insurance pensions because of insufficient time in the paid workforce), the ages were 65 for men and 60 for women. Zakon "O gosudarstvennom pensionnom obespechenii ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Pensiia 12 (December 2001): 8.




22 Andrea Chandler

retirement age of 60 for women and 65 for men.82 So arguably a precedent has already been set for raising the retirement age in the future.

Other than on pension age, the laws are gender-neutral. Workers would make social insurance contributions, collected by their employer as a percentage of wages.83 Upon retirement from the workforce, an individual would receive a base pension amount plus an additional amount calculated in relation to an individual's pension fund contributions, part of which would be invested.84 The final reform guaranteed that in the determination of the "basic pension" - a lump sum amount, given to all workers upon retirement - time spent caring for children would be counted as time worked.85 Either parent could take this time - up to a maximum of three years - without affecting eligibility for pensions.86 However, this provision was somewhat symbolic, insofar as years in the workforce no longer is the main factor determining the size of one's pension.87 Time spent in the workforce determines one's eligibility for pension, but not the amount. Therefore, upon close examination of the details, women who take time out of the workforce still are potentially at a disadvantage in the pension system, despite the great deal of attention that the debate gave to maintaining women's existing rights. The government claimed, however, to be looking into ways of rectifying that situation.88

I found this case interesting because until recently, defending women's rights in the pension system attracted more attention from the legislature than did other social welfare issues primarily affecting women, such as maternity leaves and benefits for parents with small children. This is because the pension system is often perceived as a way of recognizing citizens' services to society and the state throughout their working lives. Pensions are seen not just as rights, but as earned rewards. The idea that pensions should be awarded on the basis of how much money a person makes, or how many taxes a person pays, clashes with the well-established notion that citizens make non-monetary contributions to society - bearing children, serving in the military, performing essential

"O gosudarstvennom pensionnom obespechenii ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Rossiiskaia gazeta 20 December 2001 : 6. 83

Federal'nyi zakon, "Ob obiazatel'nom pensionnom strakhovanii ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Rossiiskaia gazeta (20 December 2001): 4-5. 84

Federal'nyi zakon, "O trudovykh pensiiakh ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Pensiia 12 (December 2001): 17-18.

Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenogramma zasedanii 132 (28 November 2001): 16. Federal'nyi zakon "O trudovykh pensiiakh ν Rossiiskoi Federatsii," Pensiia 12

(December 2001): 16. Irina Nevinnaia, "God za dva k pensii," Rossiiskaia gazeta 13 March 2003: 4. "Predsedatel· Pravleniia Pensionnogo Fonda Rossiiskoi Federatsii M. lu. Zurabov ob

aktual'nykh voprosakh pensionnogo obespecheniia," Pensiia 4 (April 2003): 28.




professions and occupations - that merit recognition in the form of social welfare benefits.89

The pension debate saw women as workers and citizens, entitled to benefits that fairly recognized their unique contributions. And ultimately, the formal recognition of women's concerns and upholding longstanding rights for women in pension legislation proved to be far more important in the discourse than the monetary value of women's pensions. The pension reform discourse saw workers, both male and female, as people who paid into the pension system through their social insurance contributions, rather than simply collecting benefits from the state. This greatly contrasts with the child benefit debate, which tended to see women as a passive group rather than as active participants in public life, and which increasingly eroded the idea of universal parents' benefits. By creating a system that excluded the relatively wealthy from child benefits, it labelled recipients of benefits as dependent on the state - even though child benefits, like old age pensions, are created through workers' own social insurance contributions. Furthermore, the new pension legislation in some ways recognized both parents as equal, but in the matter of age gave women the right to early retirement regardless of their parental status. In short, the political discourse was inconsistent in how it regarded gender in different social policy debates, and this inconsistency had consequences for the content of social policies.

It should be noted that the "base maternal (family) capital" reform of 2006, mentioned above, enables mothers of a second child to apply her lump-sum benefit to her pension savings, thereby potentially offsetting the negative pension impact of taking time out of the workforce to care for a small child. But to reiterate, it is interesting that the BMK law provides little recognition for fathers who might opt to stay home with a child.

Conclusions In Russia, there is some consensus that gender equality is important, but amid all the changes of the post-communist transition, there is no consensus on how gender equality is to be realized in a changing society. The Russian case suggests that a lack of discourse, or lack of sustained attention, to women's issues has just as much potential impact on women as a more overt rollback of women's rights. Social policy issues affecting women were discussed publicly, but all too often only briefly. Although the importance of equal rights for women is still recognized, its ranking among political priorities has been

89 Andrea Chandler, "Democratization, Social Welfare and Individual Rights in Russia:

The Case of Old-Age Pensions," Canadian Slavonic Papers 43.4 (2001): 409-435; Andrea Chandler, Shocking Mother Russia: Democratization, Social Rights, and Pension Reform in Russia, 1990-2001 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004).




24 Andrea Chandler

downgraded. Strong discourses continue to support equality and the advancement of women's rights in Russia, but in the post-communist environment the concept of "equality" is being reinterpreted. Russia's economic crisis in the 1990s led the social policy debate to be largely confined to the question of revenue, rather than analyzing its content. Demographic trends have also been invoked in order to promote reactive policy changes. These two factors combine in the discourse in order to simultaneously compel change and to restrict the parameters of the changes imagined to be possible. Since the state lacks resources, political discourse enabled them to opt out of taking measures to improve the lot of women.

The three case studies show inconsistency in their representation of gender equality and its importance. More than in other areas of social policy, the pension discourse saw women as actors in the workforce entitled to the benefits that recognize the value of their motherhood as a matter of fairness, but provided no guarantees that women would be better off under the new system. The pension reform effort ultimately acknowledged the importance of recognizing women's entitlements symbolically, if not actually. It showed that in some social policy contexts, there could be resistance to the idea that men and women should be absolutely equal before the law. In contrast, the child benefit discourse tends to see women less as active builders of society, than as passive dependants of the state. As a result, the discourse did not see mothers for what they generally are: workers, taxpayers, voters, and citizens. Mothers and children were basically lumped together as voiceless protégés of a benevolent state, even though maternity and parental leave benefits are paid from social insurance benefits that working women pay into. This contrasts with pensioners, who are generally depicted as entitled to benefits in exchange for their lifetime of service and their payment of social insurance premiums. In the abortion discourse, defenders of abortion rights argued that women are individuals whose legal rights ought to be protected, but antiabortion advocates seemed to see women as somewhat irrelevant to the question of unborn children. Inconsistent discourse leads to inconsistent policies, which leave women with few firm commitments or guarantees from the state. In truth, as the literature on women's participation in Russia often points out,90 women themselves are not very engaged in the policy issues that affect them. Women's interests would be more likely to be realized if they were more politically active. But if political discourse regarded women accurately as citizens, taxpayers, social insurance payers, and active parents, social policy might look very different.

90 For example, Valerie Sperling, Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia:

Engendering Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).



gender, political discourse and social welfare in russia: three case studies

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