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Labor Force Participation, Regional Location, and Economic Well-Being of Single Mothers in Russia

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Abstract

This paper tests the contribution of increased labor market participation to a substantial narrowing of the gap in material welfare between two parent and single mother households in Russia in the period 1996–2003. Decomposition analysis employing the technique of Juhn et al. (Accounting for a slowdown in black–white wage convergence, Kosters (ed), 1991) and data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey shows that increased labor market participation explains about one-third of the narrowing of the welfare gap. Changes in the regional distribution of single mother households, specifically increasing concentration in Moscow and St Petersburg, have proved critical because of the higher wages available in these cities. Thus quality of employment has been as important as increased participation in the labor market.

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Notes

  1. Author’s calculations using data from the RLMS.

  2. When single mother poverty rates declined in the USA they remained substantially higher (by 28.5% points in 2003) than for households with two co-resident parents. In 1996 the poverty rate for married couple families with children was 7.5%, compared with 42% for female householder households with children and by 2003 the rate for married couple families with children had fallen slightly to 7% and that of female householders had fallen to a greater degree to 35.5% (US Census Bureau 1991; 2004).

  3. Author’s calculations from the RLMS.

  4. Part of the effects of the regional and urban-PGT-rural variables is attributable to differences in prices between the regions, which may exaggerate differences in living standards between regions.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RQ, UK

    Shireen Kanji

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Kanji, S. Labor Force Participation, Regional Location, and Economic Well-Being of Single Mothers in Russia. J Fam Econ Iss 32, 62–72 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-010-9198-z

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