independent of children. Matossian (1962:14) describes how the extended family broke up with urbanization in Armenia.

Vigorous efforts were made under the USSR to bring women into public life, since at least the 1930s. During the Soviet era, gender equality was greatly increased in schooling, laborforce participation, political representation, and laws relating to inheritance and the family.<sup>**8**</sup> While gender gaps have emerged since the 1990s, especially in the area of political and economic participation (Table 3), there remains considerable gender equality in schooling in all three countries (World Bank 2014a, b, and c). Primary and secondary enrollment rates are high for both sexes. Between 1990 and 2011, gross tertiary enrolment ratios declined among men but not among women, so women outnumber men in tertiary education in all three countries (Table 3a).

Laborforce participation rates have declined between 1990 and 2011 in Armenia, especially among women, but have increased among women in Azerbaijan, where they are now the highest in the South Caucasus region (Table 3b).<sup>9</sup> In all three countries, as also in the Euro area, women working in the non-agricultural sector are largely in the service sector, not the manufacturing sector (Table 3c). Women’s parliamentary representation also dropped sharply in Armenia between 1990 and 2011, from a level well above that of the Euro area to one well below it (Table 3d).

Success in bringing women into public life is also evidenced in the attitudes expressed in the Caucasus Barometer 2010 survey, but attitudes in the domestic sphere remain much more conservative. High proportions of respondents in all three countries stated that a university education is equally important for boys and girls, and were comfortable with a woman as an immediate boss, though they tended to feel that men should have more right to a job _<u>when jobs are scarce</u>_ (Figure 3a). However, respondents in other countries such as Indonesia, which do not show son preference, also feel men should have priority in jobs when jobs are scarce (Figure A.1). Yet attitudes towards women in the domestic sphere remain conservative (Figure 3b).

The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project 2010 included some questions that were also in the Caucasus Barometer 2010 survey. Cross-country (and cross-regional) comparisons of the responses to such subjective questions are difficult to interpret, but Georgia ranks high among the countries in gender-equal views on employment and education — well above Russia on job equality (Figures A.1 and A.2). Armenia ranks much lower. Azerbaijan ranks a little lower than Armenia, but not lower than some countries which show no sex-selection: for example, it ranks higher than Indonesia for job equality, and similar to Poland for schooling equality.

Georgia may be somewhat of an outlier in the region. It shows little evidence of postnatal sexselection (Table 1). Reported gender equality in views on access to jobs and schooling are far higher than many other countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center (Figures A.1 and A.2). It also appears to be the first country in the region to show a sharp drop in sex-selection (Figure 1).

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