Who Helps the Degraded Housewife?

This article analyses the new demographic programme that was announced by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in 2006. The main goal of this programme is to encourage fertility, especially the birth of a second child. New benefits should elevate the status of wome taking maternity leave, who might otherwise suffer from discrimination in the family. The housewife is considered to be dependent and `degraded'. We argue that this demographic politics recalls continuity with soviet gender politics centred on the support of wage-earning working mothers. The programme provokes different critiques. Liberal critics argue that the programme is a populist one and it may have undesired economic and social consequences. Conservative critics want to encourage more traditional `woman' and `family' roles in society. Feminist critics argue that this politcs would reinforce both the inferior position of women on the labour market and gender imbalances on the symbolic level

Maternal guilt

The recent emphasis on humans as cooperative breeders invites new research on human family dynamics. In this paper we look at maternal guilt as a consequence of conditional maternal investment. Solicited texts written by Finnish mothers with under school-aged children in 2007 (n = 63) described maternal emotions perceived as difficult and forbidden. Content analysis of guilt-inducing situations showed that guilt arose from diverging interest and negotiations between the mother and child (i.e., classic parent-offspring conflict). Also cultural expectations of extensive and perpetual high-quality maternal investment or the “motherhood myth” induced guilt in mothers. We argue that guilt plays an important role in maternal-investment regulation. Maternal guilt is predicted to vary with social and cultural context but also to show universal characteristics due to parent-offspring conflict and allomaternal manipulation. Results are preliminary and intended to stimulate research into the mechanisms, gender differences and cultural variations of guilt and other social emotions in human parenting.Peer reviewe

Faster Transition to the Second Child in late 20th Century Finland: A Study of Birth Intervals

Birth intervals are known to influence child and parental health and wellbeing, yet studies on the recent development of birth intervals in contemporary developed societies are scarce. We used individual-level representative register data from Finland (N=26,120; 54% women) to study the first interbirth interval of singleton births in cohorts born in 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970, and 1975. In women, the average interbirth interval has shortened by 7.8 months and in men by 6.2 months between the cohorts of 1955 and 1975. A higher age at first birth was associated with shorter birth intervals (in women, b = -1.68, p<.001; in men, b = -1.77, p<.001 months per year). Educational level moderated the effect of age at first on the first birth interval in both sexes. Due to rising ages at first birth in developed societies and the manifold ramifications of shorter birth intervals, this topic deserves more scholarly attention and studies from other countries

The Man Question

What happens when sexuality is banned from IAT public discourse? This book shows how everyday sexual behaviour and morality were — or were not — affected by the Soviet censorship on sexuality. Based on autobiographies written by ordinary people from St. Petersburg, it presents the loves and lives of three generations. It describes perceptions of love, the life course of the Russian family, transmissions of sexual knowledge, informal and illegal practices and contrasting subcultures. By posing the 'man question', Anna Rotkirch argues that the postsocialist transformation has centred on the Russian man. By contrast, one of the strongest continuities in the Russian gender system concerns the ways of mothering

Generational and gender differences in sexual life in St. Petersburg and urban Finland

This article is to our knowledge the first empirical comparison of sexual behavior in Eastern and Western Europe. The timing of some sexual life events, sexual behavior patterns, and sexual satisfaction will be compared on the basis of survey data and sexual autobiographies from urban Finland and St. Petersburg (former Leningrad) in Russia. We were interested in the impact of the so-called sexual revolution taking place in public life in different decades - in Western Europe and Finland in the 1960s. in Russia in the late 1980s. We assumed that this difference would appear as country differences in "traditional” vs. “liberated” sexual behavior, and especially in the sexual satisfaction of women. This hypothesis proved generally to be true, but with several important modifications. The sexual behavior and attitudes in St. Petersburg are shown to have liberalized about 15 years later than in Finnish towns. While the sexual behavior of men and women has become almost similar in Finland, the trend towards equalization of sexual life is not as clear in Russia. Divorce and parallel relationships are more common in Russia, while the number of sexual partners and overall sexual satisfaction is higher in Finland. Country, gender, and generation are the main independent variables of the statistical elaborations. The biographical material is used for exemplifying and interpretative purposes

Syntyvyyden toipuminen ja pitenevä elinikä : Linjauksia 2020-luvun väestöpolitiikalle

Syntyvyys aleni neljänneksellä Suomessa 2010-luvulla ja väestörakenteemme kuuluu maailman ikääntyneimpiin. Selvitys tarkastelee tilanteeseen johtaneita syitä ja esittää linjauksia kestävän väestönkehityksen turvaamiseksi. Syntyvyyden voimakas aleneminen heikentää julkisen talouden rahoituspohjaa ja kasvattaa sosiaalista eriarvoisuutta. Suomen väestönkehitys erkaantui 2010-luvulla muiden Pohjoismaiden kehityksestä, joskin covid-19-pandemia on saattanut parantaa väestöpoliittista liikkumavaraamme. Ilman maahanmuuttoa Suomen väestö vähenee. Koettu epävarmuus on tärkein syy siihen, että ihmiset eivät saa toivomaansa määrää lapsia. Syntyvyyden kehitykseen voi vaikuttaa perhemyönteisyydellä. Lapsia – totta kai on ihmisten toiveita tukeva politiikkalinjaus: jokainen lapsi on tervetullut ja jokaiseen panostetaan. Pitenevä elinikä on etuoikeus. Myöhäiskeski-iässä eli noin 65–74-vuotiaiden ikäryhmässä on nykyään varsin toimintakykyisiä ihmisiä. Työllisyyspolitiikassa tai jatkuvassa oppimisessa ei ole syytä asettaa ylärajaksi 65 ikävuotta. Silti vanhusväestön palvelutarve moninkertaistuu lähitulevaisuudessa. Moderni väestöpolitiikka edistää hyvinvointia ja tasapainoista väestönkehitystä tukemalla inhimillisiä voimavaroja läpi elämänkulun ja asettamalla tavoitteita väestön uusiutumiselle, syntyvyydelle ja muuttoliikkeelle. Yksinomaan maahanmuuton tai syntyvyyden kasvu, koulutustason ja tuottavuuden nousu tai terveempi ikääntyminen eivät riitä kohtaamaan haasteita, vaan kaikkia näitä osatekijöitä tarvitaan

The Man Question : Loves and lives in late 20th century Russia

What happens when sexuality is banned from IAT public discourse? This book shows how everyday sexual behaviour and morality were — or were not — affected by the Soviet censorship on sexuality. Based on autobiographies written by ordinary people from St. Petersburg, it presents the loves and lives of three generations. It describes perceptions of love, the life course of the Russian family, transmissions of sexual knowledge, informal and illegal practices and contrasting subcultures. By posing the 'man question', Anna Rotkirch argues that the postsocialist transformation has centred on the Russian man. By contrast, one of the strongest continuities in the Russian gender system concerns the ways of mothering

Reasons to Postpone Childbearing during Fertility Decline in Finland

We examined self-reported reasons to postpone childbearing during fertility decline in Finland in 2010s and their associations with sociodemographic factors, as well as social media use and work-related attitudes. Using representative survey data from Finnish Family Barometers, the sample comprised participants aged 20-44 who did not plan having (more) children soon. Based on exploratory factor analysis, reasons to postpone childbearing were grouped into uncertain life situation, lifestyle preferences, and completed fertility. Regression analysis results indicate that more stable life situation, infrequent social media use, and lower work-orientation were related to lower uncertainty, whereas being a woman, having no children, frequent social media use, and higher work-orientation were associated with increased lifestyle preferences. Uncertain life situation and lifestyle preferences influence childbearing decisions independently of sociodemographic characteristics.Peer reviewe