No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The value of domestic labour in Russia, 1965–1986
Abstract
This article analyses the labour activities of urban households in Russia during the period from 1965 to 1986. Labour strategies were oriented towards domestic labour and participation in subsidiary agriculture in order to compensate for the persistent shortage of food, consumer goods and services. In spite of the highest women's employment in world history, such a situation helped to preserve the traditional pattern of labour-sharing at home between family members and led to significant gender differences in the time spent on domestic labour. Towards the end of the period, the time spent by women on domestic work was shortened by the advent of home appliances, rather than by any redistribution of tasks between genders.
... Pit women campaigned strenuously in favor of such facilities (Coal Commission 1919;Evans and Jones 1994). 9 A fair objection, since in other places such improvements were more often funded through the rates or municipal loans (Crosby 2019: 94). 10 These housewives were mainly from rural homes with no labor-saving equipment and received no help from men, so analogous to the mining families (Kneeland 1929; see also Gordon and Klopov 1975;Tyazhelnikova 2006). 11 Household A 1851, Household B 1871, Household C 1891, Household D 1891, 1901. ...
This article explores the effects of gender inequality and women's disempowerment in the context of historical coalmining. Across the United States and Europe, ex-coalmining regions are characterized by significant deprivation. While there are many reasons for persistent problems, this study focuses on the restrictions imposed on women's involvement in economic life. Families in mining communities exemplified the male breadwinner structure, in which men's earnings supported wives and children who provided domestic services in return. Using evidence from Britain, this article exposes a different reality of household economics characterized by dominance and subordination: All family members were integrated into the coalmining production process and the creation of profit. Women's unpaid work did not simply provide domestic comfort; it transferred well-being from women and children to men and simultaneously contributed to the colliery companies’ profits. These findings revise accounts of mining families while explaining the intransigence of deprivation in ex-coalmining areas.
... The growing female labor-force participation, however, was not accompanied by changes in the traditional division of labor between genders within households that resulted in the "double burden" of paid work and household duties for women (Markevich, 2005b;Tyazhelnikova, 2006). Afontsev et al. (2008) document a remarkable stability in urban family formation and household structure in the Soviet Union: despite the tendency toward the formation of nuclear families, coresidence of three generations, often with just the grandmother (because of gender imbalance), was a common phenomena. ...
This version also exists as CEPR Discussion Paper n°17244.
... This arrangement was advantageous as well because of the endemic shortages of consumer goods and services of the Soviet period, and the low living standards that prevailed until well into the late 1950s. Adult unemployed family members could supplement insufficient wages and salaries from paid employment with home production of goods and foodstuffs, which, as an added advantage, could provide the households with income in kind, which could not be bought because of shortages (Kessler, 2005a,b, in press;Markevich, 2005, in press;Tyazhelnikova, 2006;Afontsev, 2006, in press). ...
Starting from census data on co-residence and household composition, the authors analyse principles of family organisation and family formation in twentieth-century urban Russia and the Soviet Union. The article uses an adapted version of the classification of households developed by Peter Laslett and Eugene Hammel to study variation in household structure for successive population censuses. Changes in this variation between cross-sections are explained with the help of additional quantitative and qualitative data and are linked to the fundamental demographic, social and economic shifts which took place in Russian society in the course of the twentieth century. The article finds a family system characterised by a tendency towards nuclear family formation, but incorporating a fairly stable element of household extension. Co-residence of three generations was both an answer to a perennial housing problem and offered important advantages in the sphere of childcare and care for the elderly. Variation and fluctuation in household structure are found to be most pronounced during the turbulent first half of the century. After a period of stability during the post-war decades of Soviet rule, post-Soviet transformations provoke new changes.
This survey discusses recent developments in the growing literature on the economic history of Russia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Using novel data and modern empirical methods, this research provides important lessons for development and political economy. We address four strands of this literature. First, we present long-term trends in economic development, illustrating that throughout history, Russia significantly underperformed advanced economies, and quantify the human cost of Joseph Stalin’s dictatorship. Second, we discuss studies of imperial Russia focusing on the causes of Russia’s relatively low level of economic development and the 1917 revolution. The third strand of the literature focuses on the Soviet period, explaining its slowdown over time and eventual collapse. The fourth strand documents the long-term economic, social, and political consequences of large-scale historical experiments that took place during both the imperial and Soviet periods. We conclude by discussing the lessons from this research and highlighting open questions. (JEL N10, N30, N40, N60, P20, P30, Z13)
This article presents a metaphysical revision of Marxian labour theory of value, enlightened by two great thinkers of the 20th century who were once colleagues in Princeton University: Einstein and Arendt. By exploring Einstein's potential impact upon Arendt with relativism, we open the concept of "social relativistic spacetime" from a metaphysical point of view, which is inferred from Theory of Relativity. Thus metaphysical reinterpretations of value, labour, and labour theory of value are acquired in scientism. Finally, we record a private dialogue to discover the theoretical dilemma CCP is in.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.