Employment characteristics and partnership formation among lone mothers in Russia

Abstract

Lone mothers' poverty rates in Russia were very high in the period following the transition in 1991, and earnings inequalities between women increased. The aim of this paper is to examine to what extent lone mothers' economic situation may have also influenced their rates of partnership formation. This can add to an understanding of how the influence of growing economic inequalities extends to other areas of the life course as well. The data used is from the Russian Generations and Gender Survey (GGS), and methods of event-history analysis are applied for the empirical investigations. The effect of occupation on partnership formation is compared before and after the transition, as earnings differences between those working in different occupations grew after 1991. The results indicate that lone mothers working in service occupations, in particular, had substantially higher rates of partnership formation than those working in higher-paying professional occupations requiring a university degree, both before and after the transition in 1991. However, no large changes in the effect of occupation on partnership formation are found for the period after 1991 compared to the period before transition.