Template:Divorce

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In the 1990s, approximately one marriage in three ended in divorce, with the rate increasing 20 percent in the early 1990s after the break up of the Soviet Union. About 60 percent of Russian marriages now end in divorce.[1]

Forty million Soviet men died in the three cataclysmic events of the USSR — the collectivization of agriculture, the political purges, and World War II. This created a severe shortage of men for two generations of women. Moreover, the mortality rate for Russian men today is four times that of women in all age groups over twenty due to alcoholism and related accidents and illnesses, and women outlive men, on average, by thirteen years. This explains why there are so many babushki (grandmothers) in Russia and so few dyedushki (grandfathers).[2]

A few more facts helps explain women's status in Russia. One of every two marriages ends in divorce, and the number of single mothers and single women continues to rise. Nearly one-third of all babies born in Russia in the year 2000 were born to unwed mothers, double the percentage of a decade earlier, and 40 percent of those babies were born to teenagers.[3]

Like many other movements originating in the West, feminism has been late in reaching Russia. Grassroots women’s groups are springing up around the country, but feminism is not yet a mass movement. The equality that Russian women want differs from that of Western women. Russian women see themselves as far more traditional in their dealings with men and their views on domestic life. In dress and style, for example, they prefer glamor to comfort, femininity to practicality. Russian women are duly recognized on March 8 Women’s Day, a Russian version of Valentine’s Day. In communist years the festival was used to emphasize the equality of sexes lacking in the capitalist West, but it remains popular today.[4]

To cope with their hardships, women depend on and support each other to a remarkable degree. Through networks of trusted and lifelong friends, they help one another with the daily hassles of life and provide moral support in times of crisis.[5]

  1. Marriage in Russia, Facts and Details. http://factsanddetails.com/russia/People_and_Life/sub9_2d/entry-5011.html
  2. Murray Feshbach. Russian Military: Population and Health Constraints. Prepared for the Conference on Russian Power Structures: Present and Future Roles in Russian Politics, sponsored by the Swedish Research Institute of National Defense and the Swedish Defense Commission, Stockholm, October 17–18, 2007.
  3. Moscow Times, (November 29, 2001).
  4. Women’s Day was formerly known as International Women’s Day.
  5. Richmond, Yale. (2008). From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Russia. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.