WOMEN IN SCIENCE

(Based on Materials from Tomsk Oblast)

E. S. KOGOTKOVA

The participation of women in various spheres of human activity is one of the indicators of the specific character and level of development of a society. The half-century existence of the world’s first socialist state has shown that the USSR belongs among the countries with a high level of utilization of women’s labor in the national economy. In 1966, the share of women in the total number of workers and employees was 50 percent, and more than 50 percent among collective farmers. The overwhelming majority of the able-bodied female population is employed in the social economy, and only \(1/4\) in personal domestic or subsidiary farming.

The branches in which women are predominantly employed are health care (85%), trade and public catering (73%), credit and insurance (74%), education (72%), and communications (66%)^1). The broad involvement of women in the social economy is ensured by the advantages of the socialist mode of production, by socialist relations of production, and by the state and level of development of the productive forces. The development of the productive forces—namely, the use of machines—creates conditions for drawing women into social production.

The growth in the number of women employed in social production is a regular phenomenon even under capitalism, but it assumes distorted forms. Women’s labor is used predominantly in unskilled and low-paid work. For labor equal to that of a man, a woman receives lower pay.

The first industrial revolution fundamentally changed the content of the elements of the productive forces. These changes occurred in connection with the replacement of natural elements of production by artificial ones, and of simple elements by complex ones. K. Marx, characterizing the qualitative peculiarity of industrial production at this stage, wrote that production based on the use of physical, chemical, and biological laws cannot be carried on without science.

Today a second, more powerful scientific and technological revolution is taking place, bringing about changes both in production as a whole and in the structure of the productive forces. At the new level of development of the productive forces, human beings strengthen their influence both on the instruments of labor and

^1) Labor in the USSR. Statistical collection, p. 76.

and to the objects of labor; moreover, the decisive factors determining the degree of a person’s influence become not only skills and experience, but, most importantly, scientific knowledge and scientific-technical qualifications. This accounts for the growth in the number of workers engaged in scientific labor.

In the USSR over the past 50 years, numerous cadres of scientific and scientific-pedagogical workers have been trained. If in 1914 the number of scientific workers was 11.6 thousand persons, then in 1940 it was 98.3 thousand persons, and in 1966—712.4 thousand persons. One fourth of the world’s scientific workers are scientific workers of the USSR^2).

In no branch of the national economy was there such a high rate of growth of workers as in science and scientific services. Thus, from 1928 to 1967 the number of workers in science and scientific services increased from 82 thousand persons to 2,860 thousand persons, i.e., almost 35-fold. Whereas over the same period the number of workers and employees in industry, construction, and agriculture increased 6.5-fold, and the number of workers in education and health care—10.5-fold^3).

The growing need for workers engaged in scientific labor creates the possibility for the broad involvement of women in this sphere of activity. On the other hand, in the practice of socialist construction women were given broad access to all fields of knowledge. Among students of higher educational institutions in the 1966/67 academic year, women accounted for 45 percent. If in the 1914/1915 academic year women among students of technical higher educational institutions made up a little more than 1 percent, then in the 1966/67 academic year—32 percent. In agricultural higher educational institutions, respectively, 5% and 26%. And in some higher educational institutions (health care, education, art), their share in the 1966/67 academic year ranged from 55 to 65%^4).

The growth in the number of women with higher education is an objective basis for women’s participation in scientific and scientific-pedagogical activity. In 1966 the number of women scientific workers was 273.5 thousand persons out of 712.4 thousand, or 38 percent of the total number of scientific workers^5). This is a fairly significant share.

The operation of this regularity can also be traced in the materials of Tomsk Oblast. In Tomsk Oblast, as in the country as a whole, the number of those employed in science and scientific services is growing at a higher rate than in other branches. Thus, from 1958 to 1967 it increased by 182 percent, while the number employed in agricultural production increased over the same period by 160 percent, and in industry—by 128 percent. Despite the higher rates of growth of employment in science and scientific services, the proportion of women employed in this sphere of activity is lower than in other branches. In 1966 it was 40%, whereas in industry it was 82.6%, in public catering—92.6%, etc.

In all, in Tomsk Oblast in 1966, 3,657 persons were engaged in scientific and scientific-pedagogical work; of them, 1,541 were women, or 42.1%. This share is higher than for the country as a whole. The scientific and scientific-pedagogical institutions of Tomsk Oblast are concentrated mainly in the city of Tomsk. Tomsk is an old university city, one of the scientific centers of Western Siberia, with a large number of higher educational institutions and research institutes; therefore, here the share of those employed in science is higher in relation to other branches. With an average-normal structure of the popu-

^2) The Land of the Soviets in 50 Years. A Collection of Statistical Materials, p. 283.
^3) Labor in the USSR. Statistical Collection, p. 24.
^4) The Land of the Soviets in 50 Years. A Collection of Statistical Materials, p. 282.
^5) The Land of the Soviets in 50 Years. A Collection of Statistical Materials, p. 283.

... by sex; this, naturally, led to an increase in the proportion of women’s labor in scientific and scientific-pedagogical activity.

Since the principal criterion of the high quality of the labor of scientific workers at present is the possession of the academic degree of doctor or candidate of sciences, it must be noted that among all scientific and scientific-pedagogical workers, doctors and candidates of sciences—women account for 6% in the country as a whole, and 5.6% in Tomsk Oblast, whereas among men the corresponding figures are 17.7% and 13%. That is, the qualitative composition of women’s labor is lower than that of men.

The lower qualitative composition of women’s labor in this field, as compared with men’s, should by no means be regarded—as bourgeois ideologists do—as a consequence of women’s biological inferiority. Trying to justify the humiliated position of working women in capitalist society, they spread anti-scientific fabrications to the effect that nature itself has limited the sphere of their activity and interests.

Exposing the anti-scientific character of the biological approach to social phenomena, Marxism-Leninism establishes that the degree of women’s participation in the social economy depends on a number of socio-economic and demographic factors. The broad involvement of women in various spheres of activity presupposes the creation of proper socio-economic conditions enabling a woman to combine work in the social economy with motherhood, the upbringing of children, and the performance of household duties. These conditions are ensured by special labor legislation (various benefits for working women, the prohibition of the use of women’s labor in physically arduous and harmful work), by the development of public forms of child-rearing, and by the industrialization of work connected with running the household.

In the USSR, despite the accelerated rates of development of the service sector in recent years, branches serving the population are still insufficiently developed. In Tomsk Oblast in 1964 the volume of services rendered to the population amounted to 87.2% of the RSFSR level. In terms of the number of places in day nurseries per 1,000 population, Tomsk Oblast lags behind not only the RSFSR as a whole, but also most oblasts of Western Siberia. The number of places in permanent day nurseries per 1,000 population in 1963 was: in the RSFSR, 7.6; Western Siberia, 6.5; Altai Krai, 4.3; Kemerovo Oblast, 8.6; Novosibirsk Oblast, 6.1; Omsk Oblast, 7.1; Tomsk Oblast, 5.8.

It is indisputable that in a family living in a well-appointed apartment less time is spent on housework than in poorly appointed apartments. Meanwhile, in the city of Tomsk more than half of the entire public housing stock is lacking in amenities. All this leaves unresolved the problem of reducing labor expenditures in the household. A working woman has a greater labor burden than a man.

Thus, the lower quality of women’s labor in science and scientific-pedagogical activity cannot be explained by any generally different level of abilities of women and men. However, actually different abilities may exist as the product of different socio-economic conditions of personality development. Therefore V. I. Lenin noted that complete equality will come when woman is freed from domestic slavery. The conditions for the full flowering of the abilities of men and women engaged in the national economy can be equal only when both the working and the free time of each person become equal.

Engaging in science is a specific kind of labor. Science is creativity. The great Russian physiologist Pavlov said that “science demands from a person his whole life. And if you had two lives, they would not be enough for you.” Therefore, here more than in any other sphere, the influence of socioeconomic conditions is felt in the effectiveness of women’s labor. It is no accident that the proportion of women specialists with higher education employed in the national economy is higher than that of those engaged in scientific and scientific-pedagogical work. In Tomsk Oblast in 1966, women specialists with higher education in public production accounted for 54.2%, as against 42.1% in science.

The main number of women engaged in scientific and scientific-pedagogical activity work in the higher educational institutions of the city of Tomsk (in 1967, 1,482 persons out of 1,814). The distribution of women’s labor among higher educational institutions gives grounds to believe that in scientific and scientific-pedagogical activity, just as in the national economy as a whole, there exists a specialization of women’s labor. The largest number of women work in the medical institute (237 persons out of 380 research workers, or 62%) and in the pedagogical institute (123 persons out of 206 research workers, or 60%). At Tomsk State University, out of 729 research workers, 345 are women, or 43%. Whereas in technical higher educational institutions women’s labor constitutes a considerably smaller part of the total number employed. In the polytechnic institute it is 39% (547 women out of 1,392 research workers); in the civil-engineering institute—37% (120 women out of 319 research workers); in the institute of radioelectronics and electronic engineering—33% (110 women out of 335 research workers). The difference in the proportions of women among higher educational institutions is the result of analogous differences in the spheres of activity for which these institutions train specialists. Accordingly, the qualitative characteristics of labor undergo similar changes.

The number of Doctors and Candidates of Sciences among women is greater in those higher educational institutions where more of them work. In the medical institute, more than half of the Doctors and Candidates of Sciences are women (104 persons out of 197, or 52.8%). Correspondingly, in the pedagogical institute—46.6% (21 persons out of 45); at TSU—36.6% (92 persons out of 251); in the polytechnic institute—16.5% (51 persons out of 309); in the institute of radioelectronics and electronic engineering—15.6% (7 persons out of 45); in the civil-engineering institute—13.1% (5 persons out of 38 research workers). Among the technical higher educational institutions, the percentage of women Doctors and Candidates of Sciences is somewhat higher in the polytechnic institute. This is due to the same processes of specialization discussed above. Thus, of the 51 women who are Doctors and Candidates of Sciences, 21 work in the chemical-technological faculty, which amounts to 41.1%, and 7 persons in departments of the social sciences, or 13.7%; in the remaining 9 faculties, the number of women Doctors and Candidates of Sciences ranges from 1 to 5 persons. As for Doctors of Sciences, their proportion in the total number of women scientific and scientific-pedagogical workers in the city of Tomsk is 1.3%. In all, 20 women Doctors of Sciences work in the higher educational institutions of the city of Tomsk (at TMMI—11 persons, at TSU—7 persons, at TPI—2 persons).

Thus, the deeper the process of specialization of scientific labor, the smaller the proportion of women. This is observed even in the medical institute, where the proportion of women among all research workers is 62%, whereas among Doctors and Candidates of Sciences it is already 52.8%, and among Doctors of Sciences—34.3%. In other higher educational institutions this pattern is even more clearly expressed.

Among all scientific and scientific-pedagogical workers in the higher educational institutions of the city of Tomsk, women Doctors and Candidates of Sciences account for 11.5%, whereas men—

NPI—32.8%, with substantial differentiation among higher educational institutions and, within the institutions, among departments.

As has already been noted above, in order to solve the problem of improving the qualitative composition of women’s labor, it is necessary first of all to free it from the most unproductive and, as V. I. Lenin said, degrading and stultifying labor of running the household.

The conclusion concerning the dependence of the share of women’s labor among scientific and scientific-pedagogical workers on those spheres of activity for which they train specialists has practical significance both from the standpoint of a scientific approach to staffing and from the standpoint of long-term planning for the use of labor resources in the field of science.

1. The Land of Soviets in 50 Years. A Collection of Statistical Materials. ↩