Magyar Women: Hungarian Women’s Lives, 1960s–1990s

325 Pages·1994·78.81 MB·English

by  Chris Corrin (auth.), Jo Campling (eds.)

MAGYAR WOMEN
Also by Chris Corrin
SUPERWOMEN AND THE DOUBLE BURDEN: Women's
Experience of Change in Central and Eastern Europe
and the Former Soviet Union
Magyar Wo111en
Hungarian Women's Lives, 1960s -1990s
Chris Corrin
Lert1ner in Politics, Glasgow University
Consultant Editor:Jo Campling
M
St. Martin's Press
©Chris Corrin 1994
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1994 978-0-333-56039-6
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claims for damages.
First published in Great Britain 1994 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LT O
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-23128-7 ISBN 978-1-349-23126-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-23126-3
First published in the United States of America 1994 by
Scholarly and Reference Division,
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-10689-8
Libra I)' of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Corrin, Chris, 1956-
Magyar women : Hungarian women's lives, 1960s-1990s I Chris Corrin
:consultant editor,.Jo Campling.- 1st U.S. eel.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-10689-8
I. Women-Hungai)'-Social conditions. 2. Feminism-Hungai)'-
-History, :~. Hungai)'-Social conditions-1945- I. Campling,.Jo.
II. Title.
HQ1610.5.C67 1994
305.42'09439---<lc20 93-430 I
CIP
To Eva Corrin with love and thanks
Contents
List of Tables and Figures Vlll
Preface and Acknowledgements X
List of Abbreviations Xlll
1 Introduction 1
2 Transfonnations 28
3 Won1en's Paid Work 54
4 Don1estic Work and Fan1ily Considerations 84
5 Social Policy Deve1opD1ents 118
6 Hungarian Health Care: WoDlen's Health 151
7 Attitudes in Transition 181
8 Politics in Transition 214
9 Conclusion 242
Appendix I Election Results 265
Appendix II Conditions for Granting Permission for Abortion 266
Appendix III Declaration of Intent 267
Appendix IV Declaration of Women from East-Central and
Eastern Europe 270
Appendix V List of Women's Groups and Organisations in
Hungary 271
Appendix VI Statistics on Hungary 273
Notes 275
Bibliography 279
Index 291
Vll
List of Tables and Figures
Tables
2.1 Organising principles at work in the three spheres
of the first, second and the alternative societies 46
3.1 Data on child-care institutions, 1938--60 58
3.2 Proportion of women in leading positions, 1960-80 60
3.3 The proportions of working women and men in
agricultural activity 62
3.4 Distribution of female population, analysed by
activity and settlement 64
3.5 Commuters among the active earners, analysed by
gender 65
3.6 Indices of schooling, analysed by gender (to 1960) 70
3.7 Women students attending full-time courses at
institutes ofhigher education, as percentage of total
number of students in each speciality 71
3.8 Number of employed women including skilled
women, excluding employed pensioners, 1976-84 73
3.9 Percentages of active wage-earners in physical jobs 74
3.10 Average monthly wage of women in manual jobs,
as percentage of men's average wage 76
4.1 Number of marriages ending in divorce 99
4.2 Percentage distribution of live births analysed
according to mother's economic activity status 106
4.3 Responses to questionnaire on principles and
practice in demographic policy 107
5.1 Numbers receiving family allowances 131
5.2 Percentage of those caring for children up to the
age of two 135
5.3 Access to creche and nursery places, 1983 136
5.4 Overall unemployment rates for men and women,
April 1991 142
5.5 Proportion of unemployed population analysed by
educational level 142
5.6 Opinions concerning whom the state should
support 145
Vlll
List of Tables and Figures ix
5.7 Public spending 147
5.8 Amounts of unemployment compensation paid,
1990 149
6.1 Health care in Hungary, 1989 154
6.2 Main method of contraception used three years
after marriage, analysed by age-groups of users 158
6.3 Physicians analysed by speciality and gender 164
6.4 Incidence of suicide in Hungarian society, 1920-85 174
6.5 Lead concentration: reading taken in Budapest,
June 1991 177
7.1 Attitudes of boys and girls to family tasks 183
7.2 Source of political concepts 185
8.1 Women Members of Parliament in Hungary, 1991 217
8.2 Percentage of responses agreeing to abortion 224
Figures
2.1 Class structure and political fields in post-
Communist Hungary, 1990 51
8.1 Whom does the government represent? 227
Preface and
Acknowledgements
The origins of this work lie far back in 1982 when I read a book
by two excellent Hungarian sociologists Gyorgy Konrad and
Ivan Szelenyi called The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power.
This work was a Marxist critique of 'actually existing socialism'
with the authors building from their research into urban inequal-
ity a thesis about the new class oppression in 'Eastern Europe'. In
my desire to pursue these lines of thought I began a dissertation
which eventually metamorphosed into a critical study of the
situation of women in Hungarian society. Doubts concerning
'studying women' were then being voiced in women's groups in
terms of objectification and careerism. I eventually made my
peace with these arguments as the aim of my research was to
privilege women's experience of change, in close contact with
many women in Hungary over the past seven years. I am glad to
have written this work in order to 'feed it back' into the women's
groups which are now developing in Hungary and elsewhere in
central and eastern Europe.
My way of working was ethnographic in that I spent as much
time as I could with women discussing everyday concerns,
particularly aspects of their lives in terms of work, child care,
money, personal identity and sexuality, and political change and
sometimes taping more formal 'interviews'. The taped interviews
formed the basis for much of my reasoning in the original work,
yet I was warned by 'Oxford academia' not to include too many
'unsupported quotes' from women. It is precisely these discussions
which are the most valuable insight into how women in Hungary
have experienced the changes since 1948. It was from 1948 that
conscious decisions were being made to alter Hungarian econom-
ic and social decision-making radically within a new form of
political organisation.
For this book I transcribed documentary and other materials
written by Hungarian sociologists on various aspects of women's
situation and theories of 'socialist families'. I also interviewed
X