Women are guaranteed three years of maternity leave and receive 70 percent of their salaries for the first year and a half. Consequently, most working Kazakhstani women are still employed in education. Nonetheless, the financial rewards of private enterprise are beginning to draw more and more of them into business. They are discovering, for example, that there is a substantial difference between the salary of a university professor and that of a translator in a foreign company. But the underdeveloped state of the economy, particularly the absence of market regulation, makes it extremely difficult for them to go into business for themselves.
Chambers of commerce can play a vital role in expanding business opportunities for women.
Koolyash Kashkinbaeva, marketing director of the Atyrau Chamber of Commerce in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, found it particularly striking that so many American companies and individuals are willing to invest substantial amounts of time and money in their communities. These are factors in the success of American business, and they represent a tradition that should be established among the newly emerging private enterprises in Kazakhstan. The fall of communism opened a new era in the history of Kyrgyzstan, and gave the country an historic opportunity to create a democratic, civil society. This will doubtless be a long, difficult task, complicated by the lack of a democratic tradition, economic stagnation, the absence of a strong middle class, and the underdeveloped state of independent media. Nevertheless, the people of Kyrgyzstan have embraced the challenge of building a new society based on democratic values.