Changing family-state boundaries: Who raises the children in post-Soviet Russia

This dissertation uses the case of post-Soviet Russia to explore how boundaries between different social spheres (i.e. state, market, civil society, family) get redefined during periods of rapid social change. It focuses on an arena that lies very much on the fault lines of these multiple spheres: raising children. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 came a sea change in the distribution of resources to children and in the experience of Russian childhood. The challenges to Soviet principles and ideals and the abrupt restructuring of many Soviet institutions pose important questions for a society in transition: who should provide resources for children? How and by whom should they be raised? To what extent should the state be involved and how much should parents be expected to provide on their own? What role should communities and markets play? How are parents formulating and deploying child-rearing strategies in response to the macro-level changes in available resources? How are changing child care responsibilities negotiated between husbands and wives?; My research is based primarily on in-depth interviews with forty mothers and fathers of 9--10 year-old children in the city of Saratov conducted in 1998 and again in 2000. These interviews are supplemented with participant observation in their families and in the institutions frequented by their children, including preschools, schools, churches and extra-curricular activities. I also draw on more focused comparative interviews with fifteen parents of preschool-age children in 2000.; My analysis establishes the growing resource gap for Russian children as the state and economy have contracted and discusses how urban families are attempting to bridge this gap. I make connections between macro environmental changes and micro-level family survival strategies. I start each chapter by looking at structural and cultural elements in the public sphere of a given arena (i.e. the culture of community and civil society; state policies and rhetoric on preschool care, education and after-school enrichment) and then explore how couples negotiate roles and develop coping mechanisms using both material and symbolic resources. Finally, my work highlights the important role of gender as an organizing principle in how Russia's social spheres and responsibilities for children are being redrawn.