Gender, work and economic restructuring in a transcarpathia (Ukraine) village

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Notes

1. Ethnographic research used in this paper was funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Dissertation Improvement Grant (No. 9632254), an International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) Individual Advanced Research Grant and a Fulbright–Hayes Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. Focus group research was funded by the Ford Foundation (Ford Foundation Grant No. 950-1163) and the National Council for Soviet and East European Research (NCSEER) (Research Contract 812-11). In addition to financial support, moral support was provided by members of the “Identity Formation and Social Issues in Estonia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan” research team and I am grateful to them for comments on earlier versions of this text.

2. See for example: R. Voorman, this volume; A. Pollert, “Women, Work and Equal Opportunities in Post-Communist Transition,” Work, Employment and Society, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2003, pp. 331–357; Vicki L. Hesli and Arthur H. Miller, “The Gender Base of Institutional Support in Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia,” Europe–Asia Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3, 1993, pp. 505–532; P. Fallon, T. Hoopengardner and E. Libanova, “Poverty and the Ukrainian Labor Market,” in P. Cornelius and P. Lenain, eds, Ukraine: Accelerating the Transition to Market (Washington, International Monetary Fund, 1997), pp. 81–96; S. Hubner, F. Maier and H. Rudolph, “Women's Employment in Central and Eastern Europe: Status and Prospects,” in G. Fischer and G. Standing, eds, Structural Change in Central and Eastern Europe: Labour Market and Social Policy Implications (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1993), pp. 213–240; J. Braithwaite and T. Hoopengardner, “Who are Ukraine's Poor?” in P. Cornelius and P. Lenain, eds, Ukraine: Accelerating the Transition to Market (Washington: International Monetary Fund, 1997), pp. 61–90.

3. See for example: V. Yatsenko, “Employment Policies and Programmes in Ukraine,” in M. Godfrey and P. Richards, eds, Employment Policies and Programmes in Central and Eastern Europe (Geneva: International Labor Office, 1997), pp. 183–207; ILO-CEET, The Ukrainian Challenge: Reforming Labor Market and Social Policy (Budapest: CEU Press, 1995).

4. O. Khomra, “Differentiation in Orientation for Employment in the Near and Far Abroad: Specific Features of Ukrainian Carpathians,” Migration Issues, 1, 1997, pp. 21–24; O. Khomra, “Migrations of Ukrainians in Ukraine,” Migration Issues, Vol. 2, No. 5, 1998, pp. 13–16.

5. Yevhen Syariy, “Migration of Ukrainian Citizens to the Russian Federation for Employment Purposes and Impact of the Migration on Ukrainian–Russian Relations,” Migration Issues, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1999, pp. 34–47.

6. Y. Konstantinov, “Patterns of Reinterpretation: Trader-Tourism in the Balkans as a Picaresque Metaphorical Enactment of Post-totalitarianism,” American Ethnologist, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1996, pp. 762–782; C. Humphrey, “Traders, ‘Disorder,’ and Citizenship Regimes in Rural Russia,” in M. Burawoy and K. Verdery, eds, Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Post-socialist World (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), pp. 19–52.

7. This is a pseudonym.

8. See the introduction to this volume for more information.

9. Several factors influenced the selection of participants. For reasons of continuity9 and convenience, participants were recruited by the two moderators. Although the protocols of the larger project called for the selection of participants who did not know one another or the moderator, the conditions of village life (where everyone knows each other) precluded selection of individuals unknown to the moderator, or to each other.

10. The assignment of “members of a collective” to the all-female group and the self-employed workers to the all-male group reflects a larger trend in employment, since most of the work opportunities available in collectives were stereotyped as female jobs (teacher, nurse, accountant), while the few avenues of self-employment in the village were open primarily to men (construction work of various kinds; automobile repair; day labor). A number of limitations, including time, timing and funding, prevented me from conducting other groups of potential interest, including self-employed women, steadily employed men, housewives, migrant laborers of both sexes, and mixed groups.

11. For a historical perspective, see V. Il'ko, “Zakarpats'ke Selo v 20-x Rokax,” in I. Hranchak, ed., Narysy Istoriji Zakarpattia Tom II (1918–1945) (Uzhhorod, Ukraine: Zakarpattia, 1995), pp. 167–180.

12. All of these categories of work are represented in the previous occupations of focus group participants. Data on current and previous occupations of the participants are summarized in Tables 2 and 3.

13. Two examples will illustrate this. In the fall of 1997, the Ukrainian government began to enforce the passport law, which required that all Soviet passports be changed for Ukrainian ones by the year 2000. This caused a return flood of migrant workers, a rapid increase in the “expedited processing fee” and widespread fear that workers returning abroad would not be able to find jobs. Around the same time, a new law severely limiting the importation of items such as soap, intended to stimulate domestic production, resulted in sharp inflation at local markets and financial difficulties for traders who depended on the importation of basic necessities for the bulk of their business.

14. The klijent, or jobs-broker, has emerged as a key figure in the post-Soviet migrant labor economy in Apsha. Virtually all jobs-brokers in Apsha are men, and many of them are young. Jobs-brokers sign contracts with customers in other countries to provide a certain number of workers. They then hire workers, lend them money for their travel abroad and provide them with work. In exchange for these and other services, the jobs-broker receives up to a 50% cut of workers' wages. For this reason, jobs-brokers constitute a new elite in the village context, driving the nicest cars and building the largest homes.

15. January women's focus group.

16. “Zhens'koji roboty ne vydko.”

17. Conversations with older Apsha residents often turned towards the decrease in value of state pensions; many people who had expected to be self-sufficient after retirement and even hoped to help their children now find themselves dependent on their children and even neighbors to make ends meet.

18. October 1997 self-employed and unemployed men's focus group interview.

19. This questionnaire was included in the January focus groups as part of the moderator guide for the “Identity Formation and Social Issues in Estonia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan” project. Its use was eliminated for the October groups for a variety of reasons, including the low level of literacy among the older participants.

20. Another possible reading of their response is that “working class” is a Soviet-era code word for “average.”