The Economic Impact of Motherhood on Women in Post-Communist Romania: A Sociohistorical Account
Open AccessFor women living across Romania today, motherhood is both a personal decision and an economic one. While literature available in the West regularly juxtaposes gender inequality against pre and post-transition experiences, I argue that experiences of motherhood have diversified steadily since the fall of communism and over the last three decades. The diversity of these experiences speak to the rapid social and political changes the state has experienced as a result of its incorporation into the global economy. Today, some women benefit from new policies, such as paid maternity leave, which, in theory, allow them to spend important time at home with their children without significant financial setback. For other women, staying at home beyond the birth of a child becomes a long-term decision to step out of the labor force, because of the rising costs and low availability of childcare services, as well as limited opportunities for well-paying jobs. At the same time, an ever-increasing portion of mothers are moving abroad to send necessary remittances home to their families. Widespread poverty, and a subsequent demand for work in the services sector, has left many women serving as the primary earners for their families although their migration, whether internal or abroad, keeps them away from their children for long periods of time. This range of experiences, and the personal and financial costs of having a child, are not captured in a traditional, macro-level analysis of mothers’ economic livelihoods alone, but rather, necessitate a theoretical analysis into the sociohistorical impacts of the state’s communist past. In my examination, I will bring three bodies of research into discussion that will allow us to more comprehensively identify and address the economic inequalities mothers face, including a stable gender ideology, gender divisions in the labor market, and the costs and policies associated with parenting. I will address precarities inherent to Romanian motherhood, while highlighting the failures of traditional, Western models of women-centered development. Romania is of particular interest among scholars studying Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries because it is the only post-communist state to have implemented policies of forced birth. These policies included bans on abortion and contraception as well as a mandate for families to reproduce. Under communism, women were also required to work full-time, with little account for the disproportionate amount of unpaid care work they assumed. Any woman who tried to stay home was considered to be working in opposition to the state (Massino, 2019). While the state offered an array of social services to ameliorate these increased burdens of work and child-rearing, women were left without basic freedoms to control their time, bodies, and careers. In modern Romania, newfound personal freedoms, like the opportunity to make reproductive decisions, are a significant improvement on what they once were, but many of the state-sponsored social services prevalent under communism have since collapsed. Women have been expected to fill many of the resulting care gaps throughout society, as Romania struggles to fund and remodel its social service sector. In my research, I use historical and legislative records, economic data on labor trends, and data on social trends in combination to provide a holistic analysis of women’s well-being today. This runs in contrast to many current methods that attempt to measure women’s economic empowerment through labor force statistics alone (Martinez-Restrepo & Ramos-James, 2017). I argue that my analytical approach allows us to see new patterns that signal neoliberalism’s failure to support mothers, hindering the prospect of economic security for families across the state. My analysis reveals that coping mechanisms women use to provide for their families both financially and in the domestic space today are eerily similar to strategies they developed under communism. It is critical to understand the imprint communist policies left on citizen’s perceptions of what it means to be a mother, and what mothers can achieve in the labor market. Across modern Romania, women have a lower rate of employment than their male counterparts – a trend that has been growing in recent years. A large part of this disparity is caused by mothers leaving the labor market to care for their children, and at a higher rate than the majority of European Union member states. While the average rate of employment decreases for women with one or more children, it has the opposite effect on fathers, increasing their likelihood of formal workforce participation. While data shows that women and mothers are falling behind in the labor market in response to cuts in public spending and deregulation, I argue that these trends are not self-repairing, as some economists may suggest, but will continue without changes in policy, as well as shifts in values and cultural norms. According to regional scholars, there are many hurdles ahead of Romania as it continues to develop and stabilize its economy. As a result, my analysis offers new solutions for theorists and policy makers alike in conceptualizing modern day challenges. Many intergovernmental organizations, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have argued that the key to ameliorating poverty rests in women’s greater workforce participation. I argue, however, that this type of approach leaves out necessary feminist economist critique. Pushing mothers into the labor force without proper support from government and outside groups will further damage their overall livelihoods just as it did under communism. Thus, it is important to consider the needs of modern Romanian women to broaden current scholarship on gender, better inform current development models, and avoid the promotion of a top down, one-size-fits-all solution.
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