Welfare States vs. State Socialist arrangements, one distinction
More refined thinking, there are six models:
US
Western Europe (Britain, Germany)
Scandinavia (Sweden)
State Socialist
Post-Socialist
 

Variables/dimensions of analysis:
Discourse on family
Stats/real change in family structure
Ideal of male breadwinner
Coercion/choice and women’s labor force participation
Claims against state and construction of needs/rights
Dependency/autonomy w/in family, gender relations
Dependency/autonomy vis-à-vis the state
 
**I really like their arguments about coercion and choice, dependency and autonomy
Show women not just victims
That their experiences with state socialism especially in the second economy (discuss) prepared them to make the leap to “free wheeling capitalism” (see 83)
“entrepreneureial women had very little to do with the total insts. of state socialism.  They often relied from early in life on the second economy instead.

Yet, ironically, both sets of women are the heirs of state socialism.  For the workers (think, men, here) the practical legacy is on e of dependence.

For the entrepreneurial women it was state socialism’s ideology of gender equality that gave them a way of thinking about themselves as potentially self-sufficient, and in some respects equal to men (emphasis added).
 
Comments  was it socialism that “gave them this”?  Perhaps the women already had this kind of orientation  i.e., that it pre-dated socialism part of peasant economy???

Or, what kind of arguments are they ignoring here and throughout the book?  Cultural!!!  Perhaps, it is a part of Slavic or peasant family culture for women to behave this way, think of themselves in this way??
The example of the Hungarian couple  84-86  ethnography  Male journalist with the better paying job, gets pay raise; woman accountant at Min of Health  low pay;  they agree on traditional div of labor at home  i.e., she does it all because she likes it and he earns more!

When he gets offer for twice the salary, they decide for her to quit her job to be totally supported by him because she would lose her health and pension benefits (old age assistance wouldn’t kick in yet)
Scary move for her, some friends say
Losing “patronage” of the state, becoming “dependent” upon him
However, upon further conversation, it turns out this “early retirement” for her will give her the chance to start her own business at their home accounting and that she hopes to end up making more than he does!
In other words, she is not just becoming dependent upon him, but her relationship with him is giving her the temporary support she needs to take risk of starting up business
In this sense, she is entrepreneurial and “autonomous”
 
 

78  the more common story for industrial laborers
workplace as social service provider  dispenser of all benefits  work, leisure, political activity, childcare, provisioning (?), haircutting, grooming, vacations
So, when factories are “privatized” they lose much more than wages  in fact, wages may stay the same but they lose all these other services and intangibles so their “real wages” are decreased dramatically
Also lose job security
 
**I also found their discussion of developments in East and West, e.g., welfare state vs. socialist states, demographic and economic changes over post-war interesting FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Think about this in context of US too
Finally, discussions about ideal family and how these vary by class  really only the economically powerful  the bourgeois!!  that can afford the “stay at home wife”
Two career, professional couples on more equal footing
Workers relationships/marriages as free and equal  women choosing not to marry because it is NOT in her economic interest to do so
Consider Marx’s critique of bourgeois marriages (with traditional division of labor) as a form of prostitution