Labor force participation, regional location, and economic well-being of single mothers in Russia

This paper tests the contribution of increased labor market participation to a substantial narrowing of the gap in material welfare between two parent and single mother households in Russia in the period 1996-2003. Decomposition analysis employing the technique of Juhn et al. (Accounting for a slowdown in black-white wage convergence, Kosters (ed), 1991) and data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey shows that increased labor market participation explains about one-third of the narrowing of the welfare gap. Changes in the regional distribution of single mother households, specifically increasing concentration in Moscow and St Petersburg, have proved critical because of the higher wages available in these cities. Thus quality of employment has been as important as increased participation in the labor market.