Evolution of Gender Role Attitudes and Gender Equality in Russia

Abstract

Social norms and individual attitudes are proven to shape individual behaviour and impact life-course decisions. The present chapter aims to systematize the fragmented evidence on the evolution of the gender role attitudes, and gender equality indicators since the end of the Soviet era to the present days in order to track whether the views of the Russian men and women have been developing towards more egalitarian, or more traditional, direction. The main focus is on such spheres as family formation and fertility, paid and unpaid work, and leadership and politics. The information on directly reported attitudes is withdrawn from a number of country-representative datasets and from polls collected by the Russian leading sociological and market research agencies. In the family formation and fertility sphere, the majority of the phenomena follow the tendencies characteristic to developed countries. The ambiguity and duality of the views can be observed when women’s economic participation, political empowerment, and even sharing of unpaid household duties are addressed. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021. All rights are reserved.