Controlling the Home: Ownership And Household Structure in Four Post-Soviet Countries

• In Event: 019 - Regular Session. Family and Kinship 1: Global Issues and Migration

Abstract

Studies of gender in the household overwhelmingly examine gender socialization or inequalities in housework and carework. Yet the home, as the site where these family dynamics are performed, is undertheorized and often taken for granted. Do spouses always feel equally in control of the home? If not, which spouse feels more control of the home and why? We argue that control of the home has many repercussions for family dynamics and for marital power. In this study we analyze two important determinants of control: 1) property rights, wherein we measure which partner has greater ownership of the home, and 2) household structure, to examine if the couple lives alone as a nuclear family, with the husband’s extended family, or with the wife’s extended family. We draw on data from a larger survey on housing and societal stability collected in Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan. These post-Soviet countries provide an excellent context to examine the independent effects of property rights and family structure on subjective control of the home. Unlike in the United States, homeownership in the post-Soviet sphere is not highly correlated with income or SES. Moreover, privatization of housing in Russia and Ukraine resulted in relatively egalitarian distribution of property between men and women. Yet we find that property rights and ownership affect men and women differently in several cases. This suggests that spouses do not feel experience equal control of the home, and that household structure in particular affects women’s subjective sense of control of the home.

Authors

• Nadina Lauren Anderson, University of Arizona

• Jane R. Zavisca, University of Arizona

• Theodore P. Gerber, University of Wisconsin-Madison