Gender in transition: Unemployment in Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia

In the summer of 1993, an American businessman friend negotiating privatization deals in East Central Europe questioned me about gender inequality in the region. He said he was surprised to find that several of the top financial executives of large, state-owned enterprises he met at the negotiating tables were women. Since this is one of the most important and prestigious positions in a capitalist corporation, he concluded that women in newly democratized East Central Europe have achieved a level of gender equality unheard of in other parts of the world. [...]