Russian President Vladimir Putin is all for more women joining the labor force, and that too in the areas that are traditionally dominated by men. He feels this is the best way to address the huge labour shortage affecting the country due to thousands of men required to be part of the army in the Ukraine war.
For some time now, Russia’s labour force has been reducing, thanks to the low birth rates. The situation has only worsened further with the Ukraine conflict that has pulled men out of the active workforce.
According to Putin, this is the time for girls and women to step up and join sectors that have yet to exploit women’s potential. He also brought up the fact that women do find hurdles in the form of family commitments and also have physical challenges to overcome due to their gender but emphasised that these are not issues that cannot be resolved or limitations that cannot be lifted.
As per data from the World Bank, adult literacy (percentage of people aged 15 and above who can read as well as write and also understand a short simple statement about their everyday life) in the Russian Federation was nearly the same among women and men in 2020. In fact, 99.7 per cent of men and an equal percentage of women in the Russian Federation were literate in 2020.
