Gender Ideals and Income Realities: Discourses about Labor and Gender in Uzbekistan

In Uzbekistan, the 1990s brought significant and sometimes drastic change in employment and income security and in earning opportunities. In focus groups conducted in 1996 and 1997 with citizens of Uzbekistan from various ethnicities, regions and social classes, it was within the context of discussion of work and income that the idea of “transition” came through most clearly: life was once normal, and will be normal again sometime, but meanwhile nothing is certain. In these focus groups there was a pervasive sense that “the transition” is an aberration; this was expressed most succinctly in criticisms of those women who transgressed gender norms in order to earn an income in the “shuttle” trade.

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