Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Motherhood and Work in an Emerging Market Economy: The Reproductive Decisions of Russian Professional Women

研究生Andrea Mazzarino将在Kay Warren博士和David Kertzer博士的指导下，对职业女性的经济与生育决策之间的关系进行研究。这项研究将在俄罗斯圣彼得堡进行。俄罗斯是一个很好的研究地点，因为近年来那里发生了广泛的经济变化。公共服务减少，生活水平下降，市场参与度提高。伴随着这些变化的是出生率的下降，鼓励妇女生育更多孩子并在核心家庭中抚养孩子的政治言论和政策重新抬头。与此同时，越来越多的俄罗斯女性在新经济中担任重要角色，比如企业中的管理和技术工作。工作为这些妇女开辟了新的生活道路，使她们不必承担婚姻和母亲的传统角色。因此，俄罗斯妇女提供了一个极好的案例研究，研究在许多其他情况下也可能发现的相互联系的人口和经济模式。研究人员将使用混合方法来了解俄罗斯低生育率和不断下降背后的因素。她将在家庭、保健和工作环境中采用参与式观察。她将以年龄分层的职业女性为样本，进行深度访谈并收集生活史案例研究。她还将探讨妇女如何在作为公民、妻子和专业人员的生活中应对相互竞争的压力，以及这些压力对妇女生殖健康和结果的影响。具体来说，她将着眼于导致一些女性发现自己在工作岗位上不成功的力量；无法实现他们的关系和生育目标；或者生殖健康状况不佳，如创伤或与怀孕有关的医疗并发症。这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于从理论上更好地理解经济变化与生育率之间的关系，这是一个在全世界都很重要的问题。更广泛地说，这项研究将有助于社会科学，旨在了解人员、资本和信息的跨国流动如何影响当地人民的生活。这项研究也将有助于社会科学家的教育。

Graduate student Andrea Mazzarino, supervised by Dr. Kay Warren and Dr. David Kertzer, will undertake research on the relation between the economy and reproductive decision making by professional women. The research will be carried in St. Petersburg, Russia. Russia is a good site for this study because of the extensive economic changes there in recent years. Public services have been reduced, living standards have declined, and market engagement has increased. These changes have been accompanied by declining birth rates, and there has been a resurgence of political discourses and policies encouraging women to bear more children and raise them in nuclear families. At the same time, an increasing number of Russian women are taking important roles in the new economy, such as management and technology jobs in businesses. Work has enabled new life paths for these women that do not involve the traditional roles of marriage and motherhood. Thus Russian women provide an excellent case study for linked demographic and economic patterns that are likely to be found in many other contexts, as well.The researcher will use a mixed methods approach to understanding the factors behind Russia's low and declining fertility rate. She will employ participant observation in home, health care, and work settings. Focusing on an age-stratified sample of professional women, she will conduct in-depth interviews and collect life history case studies. She also will explore how women negotiate the competing pressures in their lives as citizens, wives, and professionals, and the consequences of such pressures for women's reproductive health and outcomes. Specifically, she will look at the forces that lead some women to find themselves unsuccessful in their work positions; unable to meet their relationship and reproductive goals; or with poor reproductive health outcomes such as trauma or medical complications associated with pregnancy.The research is important because it will contribute to a better theoretical understanding of the relationship between economic change and fertility rates, a question of significance world wide. More broadly, the research will contribute to social science that seeks to understand how transnational movements of people, capital, and information affect local people's lives. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.