Women’s Voices: Work-Life Balance and Power Relationship in the Household in Tajikistan

Abstract

This chapter examines Tajik women’s attitudes towards family life, employment and power relationship in a household. For investigation the authors conducted a small survey on 40 Tajik women. The authors also utilized large-scale surveys on women in the country for generalization of findings and those in Central Asian States for comparison. There was no research like the authors where they look not only at the gender situation in Tajikistan but at the balance of the gender roles in the workplace and in family life based on surveying of, though a limited number of respondents, this country and numerous surveys. The chapter aims at filling this gap in the research field. Although Tajik women stick to traditional gender role values and household power relationship with their partners, and gender equality is hard to be attained in the near future, the effects of education attainment level on women’s attitude toward gender issues are positive and enhancing educational level of girls likely result in positive impacts on Tajik women’s situations.