Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T02:01:54.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Soviet Immigrant Mothers' Perceptions Regarding the First Childbearing Year: The 1950s and the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Jean M. Ispa
Jean M. Ispa*
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Family Development, University of Missouri
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

From the 1950s to the 1970s the views of sex roles in general and of childbearing in particular that were held by women in the United States changed considerably. Some evidence also indicates modest changes in ideas about sex roles occurred in the Soviet Union over these decades, but there is less reason to expect that similar changes took place in attitudes specifically towards childbearing. This article explores areas of stability and change between these two decades in Soviet women's emotional responses to pregnancy, childbirth, and newborn care and their sources of advice and support during the transition to motherhood. Similarities and differences between two cohorts, one composed of women who gave birth in the 1950s and one composed of women who gave birth in the 1970s, are discussed in terms of the prevailing family ideologies and social and economic conditions of the two decades.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , Summer 1988 , pp. 291 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Ferree, Myra, “A Woman for President? Changing Responses: 1958–1972,” Public Opinion Quarterly 38 (1974): 390–399 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mason, Karen, Czajka, John C., and Arber, Sara, “Change in U. S. Women'sSex-Role Attitudes, 1964–1974,” American Sociological Review 41 (1976): 573–596 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wertz, Richard and Wertz, Dorothy, “Lying-in “: A History of Childbirth in America (New York: Schocken, 1979, pp. 182–198 Google Scholar.

2. Juviler, Peter, “The Soviet Family in Post-Stalin Perspective, ” in The Soviet Union since Stalin, ed.Cohen, Stephen, Rabinowitch, Alexander, and Sharlet, Robert (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, pp. 227–251 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lapidus, Gail, “Sexual Equality in Soviet Policy: A Developmental Perspective,” in Women inRussia, ed. Atkinson, Dorothy, Dallin, Alexander, and Lapidus, Gail (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UniversityPress, 1977), pp. 115–138 Google Scholar.

3. Maria Neimark, Adele Nikolskaya, and Natalia Sadomskaya, “Soviet Families of Two Post-war Generations” (report prepared for the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1981), pp. 38–42.

4. Iurii Riurikov, “Pochemu detei stanovitsia men'she,” Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 46, 17 Nov. 1976. Novikova, E. E., Iazykova, V. S., and Iankova, Z. A., Zhenshchina, trud, sem'ia (Sotsiologicheskii ocherk) (Moscow: Profizdat, 1978), pp. 53–78 Google Scholar. Mokerov, I. P., “Osobennosti demografischeskogo razvitiia sem'i vusloviiakh krupnogo goroda,” in Sem'ia kak ob “ekt sotsiaVno-demograficheskikh issledovanni, ed. Mokerov, I. P. and Pavlov, B. S. (Sverdlovsk: Akademiia Nauk, 1984), pp. 3–34.Google Scholar

5. Heitlinger, Alena, Women and State Socialism: Sex Inequality in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia (New York: Macmillan, 1979), p. 62 and 96Google Scholar. Gordon, L. A. and Klopov, E. V., Chelovek posle raboty (Moscow: Nauka, 1972 Google Scholar. Kharchev, A. G. and Golod, S. L., Professional'naia rahota zhenshchin i sem'ia (Leningrad: Nauka, 1971 Google Scholar. Geiger, Kent, “The Family and Social Change,” in The Transformation of Russian Society, ed. Black, Cyril E. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960, p. 449 Google Scholar.

6. Bell, John, “Giving Birth to the New Soviet Man: Politics and Obstetrics in the USSR,” SlavicReview 40 (Spring 1981): 1–16.Google ScholarPubMed

7. Davis, Christopher and Feshback, Murray, Rising Infant Mortality in the USSR in the 1970s, U.S.Department of Commerce, Series P-95, no. 74 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980), pp. 24–25.Google ScholarPubMed

8. A. I. Kuz'min, “Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskie faktory i motivy reproduktivnogo povedeniia sem'i, “Sem'ia kak ob “ekt, ed. Mokerov and Pavlov, p. 47. Stuart, Robert C., “The Sources of Soviet UrbanGrowth,” in The Contemporary Soviet City, ed. Morton, Henry and Stuart, Robert (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E.Sharpe, 1984), p. 34 Google Scholar. See also Henry W Morton, “The Contemporary Soviet City,” in The ContemporarySoviet City, ed. Morton and Stuart, p. 7.

9. Jean Ispa, “Soviet and American Childbearing Experiences and Attitudes: A Comparison,” SlavicReview 42 (Spring 1983): 2–13. Ispa, Jean, “A Comparison of Soviet and American Women's Perceptions ofthe Postpartum Period,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 15, no. 1 (1984): 95–108.Google Scholar

10. Riurikov, “Pochemu detei stanovitsia men'she,” 1976. Kharchev and Golod, Professional'naiarabota, 1971, pp. 149–150. Savinov, L. I., “Vliianie svobodnogo vremeni na reproduktivnoe povedeniesuprugov,” Sem'ia i sotsial'naia struktura sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva, ed. Karchev, A. G. and Pankratova, M. G. (Moscow: Akademiia Nauk, 1980), pp. 119–124.Google Scholar

11. Feiga Blekher, Soviet Women in the Family and in Society (A Sociological Study) (New York: Wiley, 1979), p. 163.

12. Earl S. Schaefer and Helen Manheimer, “Dimensions of Perinatal Adjustment,” paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, April 1960. Likert-type questions are often used in research on attitudes. Typically, respondents indicate the degree to which they agree or disagree with a series of positive or negative statements of opinion. In the case of a four-point scale, such as the one developed by Schaefer and Manheimer, individuals indicate whether they strongly agree, mildly agree, mildly disagree, or strongly disagree with each of a series of statements.

13. The Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance is a statistical procedure used to test whether two samples come from the same population or from different populations. The chi-square (X2) test may be used to determine if there is a difference between two samples in the proportion of individuals with a given response;the dependent variable, or response, must be dichotomous (e.g., yes or no). Cochran's Q test can be used within a sample to compare the answers respondents give to one question to the answers they give to another question. Questions must have only two possible answers. The Kruskal-Wallis test and Cochran's Qtest are nonparametric, which means that they do not require strict assumptions about the distribution of scores in the population.

14. Bronfenbrenner, Urie, Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R. (New York: Sage, 1970), pp. 7–8 Google Scholar. Gibson, Janice, Wurst, Karen, and Cannonito, Maureen, “Observations on Contact Stimulation Provided Young Children in Selected Areas of Greece, USA, and USSR,” International Journal of Psychology 19, no. 3, (1984): 233–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Heitlinger, Women and State Socialism, pp. 127–129. Stern, Mikhail and Stern, August, Sex in the USSR (New York: New York Times Books, 1980), pp. 35–40.Google Scholar

16. These figures are reported by Kerblay, Basile, Modern Soviet Society (New York: Pantheon, 1983), p. 122.Google Scholar

17. Blekher, Soviet Women, p. 158.

18. Madison, Bernice, Social Welfare in the Soviet Union (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1968), pp. 70–71 Google ScholarPubMed. Sviadoshch, A. M., “Eti malen'kie semeinye ssory,” Zdorov'e 8 (1974): 18–19.Google Scholar

19. Sacks, Michael P., “The Place of Women,” in Contemporary Soviet Society: Sociological Perspectives, ed. Pankhurst, Jerry G. and Sacks, Michael (New York: Praeger, 1980), pp. 227–253.Google Scholar

20. Mason, Czajka, and Arber, “Change in U.S. Women's Sex-Role Attitudes,” pp. 573–596.

21. Neimark, Nikolskaya, and Sadomskaya, “Soviet Families,” p. 46.

22. L. I. Savinov, “Vliianie svobodnogo vremeni na reproduktivnoe povedenie suprugov,” p. 120.

23. Geiger, “Family and Social Change,” p. 449.

24. Mark Field, “Soviet Urban Health Services: Some Problems and their Sources,” in The ContemporarySoviet City, ed. Morton and Stuart, pp. 129–155.

25. N. N. Sheptulina, “Protection of Female Labor,” Women, Work, and Family, ed. Gail Lapidus (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1982), pp. 156–162.

26. Gordon and Khlopov, Chelovek posle raboty, pp. 113–116. Savinov, “Vliianie svobodnogovremeni,” p. 121.

27. Personal communication, June 1986

28. Neimark, Nikolskaya, and Sadomskaya, “Soviet Families,” pp. 15–16.

29. Savinov, “Vliianie svobodnogo vremeni,” p. 124.

30. Bronfenbrenner, Two Worlds cf Childhood, p. 8. Smith, Hendrick, The Russians (New York: Ballantine, 1976), p. 203 Google Scholar.

31. Sheptulina, “Protection of Female Labor,” p. 159.

32. Bernice Madison, “Social Services for Women: Problems and Priorities,” in Women in Russia, ed. Atkinson, Dallin, and Lapidus, pp. 307–332.

33. Neimark, Nikolskaya, and Sadomskaya, “Soviet Families,” pp. 47–48.

34. Gordon and Klopov, Chelovek posle raboty, p. 127. Kharchev and Golod, Professionalnaiarabota, pp. 161–170; Blekher, Soviet Women, p. 188.

35. Blekher, Soviet Women, p. 164. Sidorova, A. V., “Skoro v iasli,” Zdorov'e 8 (1974): 23–24 Google Scholar

36. Juviler, “Soviet Family,” p. 243; Lapidus, “Sexual Equality in Soviet Policy,” pp. 135–137;Neimark, Nikolskaya, and Sadomskaya, “Soviet Families,” pp. 38–42; Novikova, Iazykova, and Iankova, Zhenshchina, trud, sem'ia, pp. 53–78; Mokerov, “Osobennosti demografischeskogo razvitiia sem'i, “pp. 3–34.

37. Carden, Maren, “The Women's Movement and the Family: A Socio-Historical Analysis of Constraintson Social Change,” Marriage and Family Review 7, nos. 3/4 (1984): 7–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sacks, Michael, “Unchanging Times: A Comparison of the Everyday Life of Soviet Working Men and Women between 1923 and 1966,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 39, no. 4 (1977): 793–805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Stemp, Peter, Jay Turner, R., and Noh, Samuel, “Psychological Distress in the Postpartum Period: The Significance of Social Support,” Journal of Marriage and the Family AS, no. 2 (1986): 271–277 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Yogev, Sara and Brett, Jeanne, “Perceptions of the Division of Housework and Child Care and Marital Satisfaction, “Journal of Marriage and the Family 47, no. 3 (1985): 609–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Brodbar-Nemzer, Jay Y., “Marital Relations and Self-Esteem: How Jewish Families are Different, “Journal of Marriage and the Family 48, no. 1 (1986): 89–98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40. Miller, Brent C. and Sollie, Donna L., “Normal Stresses during the Transition to Parenthood, “Family Relations 29, no. 4 (1980): 459–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Blekher, Soviet Women; Sacks, “Unchanging Times. “