Vida Kanopiene
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Republic of Lithuania / Vilnius University

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

A political, economic and social reform started in Lithuania at the beginning of the 1990’s predetermined essential changes in all spheres of life, including paid employment. The transition period has meant the decreasing scope of production that has unavoidably caused a decrease of the employed persons and subsequently, the increase of the unemployed in numbers. The processes of privatisation and modernisation of the economic systems have changed the employment structure of the population drastically. New groups of the employed from the point of view of their economical status have emerged: the employers, the hired employees and the self-employed. In Lithuania as well as in other post-communist countries a specific labour market structure has been formed containing the traditional segments (employment and the unemployment) and two new ones: the ‘hidden’ unemployment and un-official employment which are not reflected in the official statistics. According to the views of some experts', there are around from 200 thousand to 400 thousand people working in the ‘grey market economy’ and 70 - 180 thousand job seekers who are not registered in the Labour Exchanges (Praneðimas, 1997). These factors taken together makes the analysis of employment even more complicated, not to mention that the special survey results on the labour market presented by the Department of Statistics and the information of the Labour Exchange to some extent differ. (Kanopienë, 1997)

This article’s main focus is the analysis of the role of women in labour market in Lithuania under the conditions of an economy in transition. It aims to show how the changes in the labour market influence the employment possibilities of females. Chapter 1 will discuss the general tendencies of women’s participation in the labour market concentrating on the level of their economic activity, dynamics within the labour market and the distribution of the work force in various professions and branches of economy. Chapter 2 will concentrate on women’s unemployment issues within the wider context of Lithuania's economic situation. Chapter 3 will analyse the economic position of women, how they combine both professional and family roles.

1. General Tendencies of Women’s Employment - 1990-1998

1.1. Labour Force and Economic Activity

Lithuania, as well as other communist countries, was distinguished by especially high economic involvement of women, this was ensured by the implementation of the policy at the "overall employment". For the Marxist ideology the participation of women in the sphere of paid job was the major precondition to ensure their equal rights. Active measures were taken to reinforce an ideology that those women whose choice was motherhood and housewife were perceived as negative, and employed women in the labour market were the preferred ideal. Since the 1970’s more than half of the employees in the labour market were women, their employment indicators differed slightly from those of men. According to the Census figures of 1989, there were 81% employed women of working-age, corresponding indicator for men was 86.1% (Professional, 1995). With the restitution of independence in Lithuania the impact of women's work on the economy of the country has started to decrease. During the period of 1991-1995 the total number of employed women decreased by 195.8 thousand (19%), meanwhile the number of employed men by 58.2 thousand (6.6%) (Table 1). The decrease of numbers of women employed in total decreased amount of the employed comprised more than ¾-ths, i.e. amounted to 77%.

Table 1

Employment trends from 1991 to1998 (average annual numbers in thousands.)

There was an evident decline of women employed among the total number of the employed population - from 53.8% in 1991 to 50.2% in 1995. It is evident that with the minor changes of the working-age population (which has declined during this period by 16.8 thousand), the decrease in numbers of the employed was closely interrelated with the outstanding changes in the economic activity of population. From 1991-1995 the women's employment level has decreased by 18.6% (from 99.0% to 80.4%), and for the men the corresponding figure was 4.5% (from 79.9% to 75.4%).

In March 1991 when the Law on Employment of Population in Lithuania was passed, the official registration introduced a new category in terms of their employment status, this was the unemployed and people in search for job. As can be seen from Table 1, the numbers of the unemployed population during the first years of independence have started to grow rapidly and have reached approximately 110 thousand in 1995. It is worth mentioning that in the run of this period (except for 1993) women comprised more than half of the officially registered persons being unemployed.

Towards the end of 1996, and the beginning of 1997 alongside economical growth the number of the employed have started to decrease, the rate of the unemployment has diminished insignificantly. Although these are positive trends in the Labour Market, as can be seen from data presented, they are related to the growth of male participation. The employment rate for men has increased to 77.8%, and the total amount of the employed has increased by 29.5 thousand. In comparison the number of employed women continued to decline, and the indicators reveal a decrease of their employment rate to 79.0%. The share of females in total employment went down to 49.2%.

The economic reforms and the processes of privatisation in Lithuania have resulted in an extensive “flow” of the employed from the state sector to the private sector. In the periods of 1990-1997 the total number of people employed in state enterprises, institutions and organisations has decreased from 1332.9 thousand to 518.8 thousand, a decline of almost 60%. In contrast, the numbers of people employed in private enterprises have almost doubled from 564.7 thousand to 1117.7 thousand. At the beginning of 1998, the share of the private sector in terms of the national employment structure comprised almost 2/3 (68.3%), in comparison with of 34.5% in 1991. It should be noted that more than half (around 58%) employees from the state sector were women, meanwhile men were more active in the private sector activities (their share comprises 57%).

What are the reasons behind the slower feminisation of the private sector? On one hand, the so called “feminine” branches of economy (education, health care and social and work) are actually maintained as a part of the state sector (Table 2). In contrast, the “masculine” spheres and activity (construction and some branches of processing industry) are almost completely privatised. On the other hand, as indicated by special surveys, women get involved into private business much slower compared to men. The Department of Statistics has conducted a survey on manpower in May 1998, which highlighted the fact that women employers comprised less than 1/3 of the independent or self-employed persons – around 40% (Darbo, 1998). The data obtained under the international survey “Fertility and Family in Lithuania”, conducted during the period of 1994-1995 (5000 inhabitants of Lithuania, aged from 18-49 were questionned), indicated that majority of women (83.7%) had no intention of undertaking private initiatives nor start up independent business. The corresponding indicator for men was much lower (64.1%). (Kanopiene, 1997).

A number of reasons accounting for the greater difficulties faced by women starting their own business and how women position themselves in the private sector were analysed by R. Aidis (1997), a study based on solely on women entrepreneurs in Lithuania. The difficulties encountered by women entrepreneurs can be summarised as:

• To start with, those are patriarchal traditions and outlooks which create a “asymmetric” role distribution in a family in which women are completely responsible for taking care of the children and housework. In the workplace stereotypic approach towards differences in skills of men and women that is wide spread in society makes it necessary “for a woman to constantly prove themselves and work much harder for her qualification be recognised” (Aidis, 1997, p.68). 86% of women indicated that it was much more difficult to be a businesswoman compared to a businessman, 71% experienced direct gender biased discrimination.

• The unfavourable business environment plays a significant role as well. It accounts for the corresponding economic policy implemented by the government, permanent changes in legislation, punitive taxes, limited possibilities to take credits and so on.
• It is quite often that the start up and successful development of business are being limited due to lack of knowledge, information, personal experience and specific business know how (Aidis, 1997, p. 64-71).

There is high probability that the growth of men's role in the private sector (the 1998 Labour Force survey data indicate that 73% of men employed in national economy are engaged in private sector compared to 59% of women) will only strengthen the existing gender inequality and deepen the labour market segregation by gender. These tendencies can be observed by the analysis of the structural employment changes of the population.

It has to be noted that the concentration of the feminine and the masculine manpower in certain domains of professional activities is characteristic both of the centrally planned economy and the free market economy. The analysis of statistical data from Lithuania in comparison with several countries of Western Europe and Scandinavian countries (the comparison was made using the data of the late 1980’s) indicated that, irrespectively of the type of social system and peculiarities of the economy, specialisation of males and females in the employment domain was closely interrelated with the traditional gender roles in society and family. Women predominate in the trade and social services (i.e. education and health care) and men dominate the industrial sector (i.e. construction, transport, some branches of industry). Another point is that men and women are positioned differently in the hierarchy of the labour market and perform work activity pertaining to different status, which enables the state to presnece of the vertical gender biased occupational segregation (Professional, 1995).

The information about the vertical gender biased occupational segregation is presented in the Population Census, so in Lithuania the latest data pertain still to the Soviet period (year 1989), therefore it would be quite difficult to have exact estimates of the changes in different segments of the “occupational pyramid”. The data of the Labour Force survey conducted by the Lithuanian Department of Statistics indicate that during the period of 1994-1998, the share of women on the top of the “occupational pyramid” has decreased. It is notable that the share of women amongst the legislators, senior officials and governors has decreased from 39.6% to 34.1%, accompanied by an increase on the importance of their work in some “popular” vocations such as technicians (here the data shows an increase from 60.7% to 69%). It has to be stated that women continue to form the majority among the public servants (85%), in the trade and services (71%), specialists (70%) and a minority (from 15% to 25%) among the most of the workers (“blue collar”) occupations (Darbo, 1998).

The analysis of the horizontal segregation of the labour market has to take into account the general changes in the structure of economy. It is well known that during the Soviet period, Lithuania turned into a quite modern industrialised Republic, with a large concentration of the employed in the industry (machinery and textile), construction and transport. Although, if compared to the market economy countries the sector of services played much less significant role in the employment of the population.

During the period of transition, especially the first years of independence (the so called period of economical crisis 1990 –1993 with the decrease of GDP by almost by 60%), due to the extremely difficult general situation in the industrial enterprises and construction companies there was a need to lower down the scope of production to a large extent. Due to these factors, during the period of 1989-1993 employment in the industrial sector has decreased by 35 %, - in construction - 45 %, transport - 40 %. Nevertheless, the private sector continued to develop and there was an evident increase of employment in the sector of social services. The numbers of those working in trade increased by 43%, financial mediation and commercial activities by - 60%. The numbers of employed in health care and education almost did not change.

The year 1994 marked the end of the economic decay period, the national economy development indicators had started to improve and there was some growth in the industrial production. As mentioned previously in section 1.1, these processes accounted for the increase of the employed since year 1996. Despite the continuing flow of the employed from one domain of activities to another, the services sector in terms of employment continues to grow. This is accompanied by the decrease of employment in the industrial and construction sector. The trends reflected in the statistics show that if in 1994 there more than half of the employed were concentrated in the so called “sphere of production”, then in 1997 the services sector exceeded the industrial sector.

The above mentioned processes predetermined certain changes in the structure of women's employment (Table 2). With a steady decrease of the women's role in the labour market, since 1992 there was a significant decrease of women's share in almost all branches of economy except education and health care. The biggest decrease was in trade (16.1 percentage point), hotel and restaurant business (12.8 percentage point), transport and communication (10.4 percentage point), processing industry (8.2 percentage point). The employment of men in some former highly feminised activities has noticeably increased, e.g., in trade their numbers have more than doubled.

The structural changes of employment patters are interrelated both with the development of the private economy, especially the trade and services sector, as well as with the processes of land reforms. It should be remembered that during the Soviet period a majority of rural inhabitants were collective or state farm workers (over 80%). In 1990 there were only 2.9 thousand private farmers, and in 1994 the number of private farmers increased to 111 thousand. The change of land ownership was linked to a series of negative processes in employment, in particular the emergence of the “hidden” unemployment. These changes had extremely painful consequences for women. For example, there was a decreasing in the number of kindergardens, village schools, libraries and health care institutions in the rural areas. The qualified women-employees lost their job places and were forced into positions of becoming housewives.