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Hungary Women in the Work Force and Foreign Workers
Women joined the work force in great numbers after
World War
II and contributed significantly to the government's
industrialization drive in the 1950s and 1960s. Families
supported the entry of women into the work force because
they
could not survive on a single income or they desired a
higher
living standard. In 1949 about 29.2 percent of active
earners
were women; by 1987 they accounted for 46 percent.
Likewise,
whereas 34.5 percent of working-age women were active
earners in
1949, about 75 percent were active earners by 1987. About
59
percent of Hungary's working women were manual workers;
the
remainder worked in white-collar jobs. (About 70 percent
of men
were manual workers, and 30 percent had white-collar
jobs.) Women
dominated low-paying jobs in the textile industry, the
service
sector, canneries, and commerce; in the white-collar area,
women
dominated in education, health, and low-profile office
jobs.
Hungarian enterprises employed about 10,000 foreign
workers
in 1986, including about 3,000 Polish miners, 1,300 Cubans
in
various jobs, and some Vietnamese textile workers. After
1983
Hungarian workers with firm job offers were free to accept
employment in Western countries for up to five years, but
in 1986
only a small number of Hungarians were employed abroad.
Data as of September 1989
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