The occupational status and wages of women in the USSR

In the USSR, the state statistics for the 1930s through the 1970s seem to reflect the development and completion of a process of active and almost universal transition of women from individual housework to socialized production. The statistics also provide a graphic picture of the most important tendencies in the qualitative aspects of women's labor. Determining the special characteristics of women's job activities within the general structure of employment in the USSR that have offers some idea of the progressiveness of the changes that have occurred in women's occupational position and the contradictions and unresolved problems remaing. Notable is the substantial change in the predominant types of work, particularly a marked decrease in the number of women employed in agriculture. The urbanization of the USSR, the development of an urban economy, and the high rates of industrialization all contributed to the expansion of labor, involvement in industry, construction, and the system of sociocultural, trade, and labor services. This process directly influenced the nature of women's labor force activity. During the 1930-70s period, the proportion of women employed in industrial work, as well as in work relating to information, increased from 13% to 52%. The proportion of women performing industrial labor which requires training increased from 5% to 13-14% during this period. The relative proportion of women doing different types of service-type work increased from 11% to 25%. Women participated most actively in creating and developing the system of medical and cultural services, children's nurseries and kindergartens, trade enterprises and restaurants. The proportion of women in charge of work collectives and organizing the activity of people was negligible at the end of the 1930s and had increased to 4-5% by the 1970s. Yet, about 40% of women working in the economy are employed in unskilled or low-skilled labor, which requires no vocational training. This index is about 30% for the entire employed population. Some specific differences in areas of work and in working conditions, and hence perhaps in pay, most likely exist owing to the psychosocial characteristics of females and to prohibitions against women working in various types of harmful jobs. Yet, these differences testify to elements of inequality continuing to persist in women's occupational status.     

An empirical application of multidimensional scaling to advertising pretesting

One of the least-managed aspects of advertising management may well be that of effectiveness measurement. The problem of obtaining satisfactory indications of advertising effectiveness is particularly critical in pretesting since the rationale for pretesting is to evaluate advertisements before their release for broadscale media distribution. Therefore, the primary purpose of the research reported here is to provide empirical evidence of the value of multidimensional scaling methods to pretesting advertising. The article demonstrates how nonmetric methodology obviates the disadvantages of such methods as consumer jury tests and rating scales. A secondary purpose of the research project is to demonstrate the value of pretesting itself by comparing the perceptions of target market consumers with those of selected group of advertising professionals.