About half of Russian men believe that women are better off not working while only 22% of women feel the same, according to an Otkritie Bank poll published by the state-run TASS news agency ahead of International Women’s Day.
According to the poll, more than half of men surveyed (55%) believe that a woman’s primary role is to be a mother and a housewife.
Men from the North Caucasus and the Volga Federal District, which have large Muslim populations, were most likely to support this view at about 64%. Men from St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region (38%) as well as other parts of Russia’s northwest (43%) were least likely to agree.
Only 37% of women shared this viewpoint, the poll said.
The majority of women respondents (51%) believe that they have the right to choose their role in society for themselves, with women from St. Petersburg and northwestern Russia most likely to agree with this.
Half of men and women said that men should only financially support their female partners if they make a mutual agreement, while 39% of men and 35% of women said that this is a man’s responsibility no matter what. Only 10% and 4%, respectively, supported full financial equality between couples. Even fewer believed that a woman’s financial dependence on her partner can destroy a relationship.
Otkritie Bank conducted its survey from Feb. 26 to March 2 among 1,000 Russians in cities with populations over 100,000.
Meanwhile, another poll conducted by Synergy University said that 51.2% of Russians don’t want to see women as their bosses, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency said. A majority of respondents said that women in leadership positions were more emotional and less organized than men.
