"Maternity Capital Program" in Russia and Its Outcomes: Gender Perspective

 

This paper (based on the collective project) examines the implementation of the Maternal Capital Program (MCP) in Russia (2006 -  2016). MCP  -  the most prominent measure of Russian family policy in recent years -  is the monetary benefit aimed at support of the family with two and more children. It is targeted basically on mothers and has to be spent on purposes predefined by the policymakers. MCP is gendered and has gender consequences. We show that instead of promoting work-family balance for working mothers and gender equality, MCP is primarily aimed at encouraging the traditional role of the woman as the mother and the main subject of care. Interestingly enough such policy takes place in the context of economic growth in Russia.  

The empirical data are the documents of MCP and 36 interviews with mothers who are eligible for  MCP.  The questions are: how the social policies are perceived by families, how MCP is used. The researchers control biographic situations as household structure, material conditions, housing situation, health status of children and parents, education and employment of parents, support from the older generation, availability of childcare institutions.

The analysis is based on the feminist approach aiming to investigate if the political measure empower women and helps to achieve gender equality. The structure of the paper is as following: The first part presents the discourse analysis of MCP. The second part focuses on the practices of implementation of MCP. In the third part, a broader perspective is reconstructed on the basis of interview data which represents the citizens' attitude towards the conducted social policy and its gender consequences.