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Ann-Mari Sätre

Abstract

Russia has experienced a conservative turn in gender policy since the early 2000s, especially since 2012. There have been conservative trends in legislation and policies along with a deterioration of women’s rights in Russia. The conservative trend is also reflected more specifically in developments in social policy. The aim of this article is to highlight how women have experienced and responded to these policy changes. Both resistance and acceptance have been noted: during my field work I have observed four kinds of responses. The article further discusses how the conservative trend might contribute to a social marginalization of women.

The theoretical framework of the article is institutional economics with an orientation to agency as the changing factor. The most relevant part of the data for this paper is composed of over 250 interviews about policies on poverty and social marginalization collected in 2010-2019 from five Russian regions with social work experts and other persons working in local formal or informal organizations, most of them women. Four of the regions are located in north-western Russia and one in the Volga region.

Author Biography

Ann-Mari Sätre (PhD, docent) is an Associate Professor of Economics and Research Director at IRES Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University. She is specialized in the structure and performance of the Soviet/Russian economy. Her current research focuses on women’s work and processes of social marginalization in Russia. She has published extensively on the Soviet/Russian political economy. Email: ann-mari.satre@ires.uu.se.

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