The following article is reproduced from a special issue on women of the journal Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, Bottom Flat, 116 Cazenove Road, London N. 16

(The low level of productivity in the countries of Eastern Europe means that the maintenance and increase of the labour forces is vital. Nearly all of these countries now provide financial inducements for women to stay at home to look after children and to have larger families. In many countries this attitude is compounded by the difficulties women experience in obtaining abortions or adequate contraception. "A woman's right to choose", although it existed for a time, has proved insecure because it was nowhere won by a mass women's movement. Women's needs can still be sacrificed to economic goals.)

Babies or Jobs

Human beings are needed as workers in the process of production and therefore reproduction becomes inherently linked with the needs of economy. Having a child is not just an individual woman's choice, but a social question. Women's role in production and reproduction has become a complex one in Eastern Europe. Historically, women's right to control their fertility in Eastern Europe as elsewhere has been subject both to economic needs and the demand of Ideology. Labour resources have currently become burning issue In E.Europe. Demographers and economic reduce it merely to talk about resources and t reproduction ratios but it also raises the question of not ot giving birth to, but also of bringing up children to become future workers. This task has so far remained the lot women. Recent campaigns have reinforced that further They have dwelt on the joys of Women's fulfillment childbirth and the joys of big families. Hence lab resources is not merely an economic question; for women in particular it has important social and political implications.

In the 1930s, Stalin's government tried to increase birth-rate by banning abortion, restricting divorce awarding "motherhood medals" to women who had five more children. Presently, the need is greater, but perhaps the governments' chances of success are not so great. It's not the problem of unemployment that is forcing the issue in E. Europe. Officially there is no unemployment and figures are issued, although in Poland in the early '70s there were some pockets of youth unemployment and young women were more affected by this. Generally, though, there are jobs for all and more, it seems. Some jobs are artificially created - Russian babushki are paid to sit around the entrance to institutions to see undesirables do not gain admittance; many similar jobs exist as a result of the unmechanised economy. Women are affected - they do unnecessary and unskilled work.

However, there are economic problems. Although the countries of E.Europe have not been as affected as those of Western Europe by the world economic recession, none can boast a flourishing economy. In the Soviet Union agricultural problems have affected the supply of consumer goods. There were price rises in Czechoslovakia in August 1977. In Poland the situation is particularly bad because the entire economy is based on huge loans from the West. In an effort to cope with the problems, the government announced price rises in 1976, but the workers rioted and the idea had to be shelved. Recently the government has passed legislation allowing small-scale private trading.

The problems remain the same - low productivity, inefficiency, waste - the government measures change. In Poland even as early as the mid-fifties (55-58) there were sackings of women on the pretext of stopping the growth of bureaucracy and discussions about giving allowances to men whose wives weren't working. In the '60s the economists suggested decentralization, rationalization and mechanization. They talked of over employment and rationalizing the labour force by cutting the number of women working. There was talk in the Soviet Union of the dignity of housework and its contribution to the national economy. Now policies have changed - planners have accepted that economic improvements are only going to be achieved by extensive methods i.e. by increasing the labour force.

The problem is that the social changes of the last decade have resulted in a falling birth-rate. Urbanization continues, women's education and economic position improves, expectations about living standards have been rising. The pattern we are familiar with in Western societies repeats itself - women have smaller families. It is difficult to combine a full-time job with bringing up children when childcare has not been socialized, and children prevent women from leading active social lives. The better knowledge and use of contraception has given E.European women more choice about when and how many children they are to have. The experience of all the countries of E.Europe has been similar - even in rural Bulgaria and Romania the birth-rate fell in the '60s. In the GDR in 1975 fewer people were both than died (there was a -35 Increase per 10,000 pop.) but this is not seen as too pressing a problem as the East Germany economy is less shaky. Elsewhere, as economic policies changed the demographers became increasingly alarmed at the figures. Soviet calculations show that only thirty million people are likely to be born in the next thirty years and only five million in the second half of this period. Before long the net reproduction ratio will drop below 1, i.e. the next generation of child-bearing women will be smaller than the present one. Unless this trend is reversed it is difficult to see how the governments of E.Europe can pursue their economic policies, especially as immigration is not a politically feasible option for them.

The measures the governments are taking are economic, social and ideological. They are trying to make pregnancy and motherhood economically more attractive to women. In Hungary and Czechoslovakia women receive benefits while they stay at home to look after their small children. In Hungary the government says there is no money for building any more nurseries, but is enthusiastic about the childcare scheme which costs 30,000 million florints a year ( 400 million pounds). The benefits are not equivalent to full pay but provide a certain economic independence. In Poland, women can stay at home for three years without losing their jobs or losing out on pension rights. In the USSR women have one year off without losing their jobs and there is talk of extending maternity benefits beyond the present 8 weeks. Pay for looking after sick children, as well as creche and kindergarten facilities have been improved. Governments have used the methods of the carrot and the stick. They have combined persuasion such as increased economic benefits and lower taxes with coercion. In some countries abortion laws have been tightened up while progress on contraception has halted. In the USSR the right to abortion was restored in 1955 by Khrushchev (it was banned in '36); the other E.European countries had either introduced liberal legislation somewhat earlier or did so shortly after. When the fall in the birth-rate became obvious, some governments did not hesitate to withdraw the right and in several E. European countries at the present time abortion is severely restricted. Modern contraceptive methods are not everywhere available, and even where the pill and the lUD do exist supplies can be irregular, or of inferior quality. Contraception is not much publicized, and it appears that little research is being done.

Although the governments have promised and already delivered some improvement in social facilities, the burden of reproduction is planned to fall upon women. Women should work in production, take a few years off to raise a family, then return to work, looking after the family in after-work time. It is women who take time off to look after sick children, although there is provision for either parent to do so. Women's roles as mothers are seen as primary and their roles as workers secondary. Reproduction is to take place still essentially within the family structure. In Bulgaria the government promotes the idea that every family should have three children. There has been a long campaign In the Polish press on the family with emphasis on and pictures of large Polish families. In the Soviet Union the government has engaged in propaganda to promote the idea of the happy Soviet family.

It is uncertain whether these policies will succeed in convincing women in Eastern Europe. Birth-rates have risen (though this was inevitable anyway, as the large number of women born in the post-war years are reaching child-bearing age).

Despite the hardships of the double burden of work and family, surveys show that women value their work in production and dislike the idea of spending more time at home with the children. In Hungary, one third of the women who had taken up the offer of benefits were back to work within a year. Women in the Soviet Union seem in no hurry to take up the promises of part-time and home-work. The vast majority of Polish women go back after a year of maternity leave. There is also economic pressure to work the benefits are not sufficient. In Hungary some women arc drawing the benefits and working illegally in small private enterprises for one-third the usual wage.

If women fail to respond to government pro-natal measures the governments will be forced to seek other ways out o their economic problems. However, even if the new aspirations of women, their desire to get more out of life foil the plans of the planners the pro-natalist policies cannot be so easily ignored. Without proper contraception am abortion facilities, women will be unable to control their fertility. This will seriously threaten their position ir production. However, there has been some action in Hungary against attempts to limit abortion. We hope women in other places will also start to oppose policies which directly affect their position in these societies in such a basic way.

This issue of Labour Focus on Eastern Europe also contain an article on the action of Hungarian women against the new restrictions on abortion. In October 1973 the Hungarian government changed its previously liberal abortion policy by refusing abortions on social grounds to married women with less than three children. During the summer of 197. when the change was being planned, a petition against was organized. One of the signers of the petition interviewed in this issue. The whole issue has been pi together by a collective of feminist socialists and is important and interesting contribution to the subject women in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Recommend.