Abstract
The purpose of this article was to analyze women's employment in Soviet and then modern Russia. This analysis is necessary to assess the completeness of the use of women's human capital in labor activity, which, in turn, may become one of the bases for assessing the position of women in the co-modern Russian society. The sources of information for the analysis were official statistical data, and articles from Soviet central newspapers (“Pravda”, “Izvestiya”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Trud”), in which the state policy towards women workers was followed from ideological positions. The research emphasis was placed both on some socio-cultural features of Soviet and then Russian society, which determine the employment of women, and on its economic component. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that there is persistent gender discrimination in the labor sphere, leading to the “underutilization” of women's human capital.