Sarah Ashwin
Biographic Data
| ID | 222606 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah Ashwin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah |
| FAMILY NAME | Ashwin |
| SIGNATURE | ASHWIN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5258-3119 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 112 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Going Global
This article, based on stakeholder interviews and document analysis, compares the development of supply chain labor governance institutions in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany beginning in the late 1990s. The authors address the puzzle of why the United Kingdom's union-inclusive multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI), the Ethical Trading Initiative, rose to national dominance, while two similar MSIs failed in Germany (the Roundtable Codes of C…
An inspired collaboration with Russian sociologists
In 1990, Simon Clarke inaugurated two decades of research of the former Soviet Union through an international collaboration with Russian sociologists that examined a society in the throes of transformation. Along with his colleague Peter Fairbrother, Simon developed a network of Russian researchers in the Institute of Comparative Labour Relations Research. Together they produced a corpus of work that meticulously analysed the impact of economic r…
Pensioner Employment, Well-Being, and Gender
Encouraging pensioner employment is one answer to the challenge of aging societies. Employment positively influences the subjective well-being (SWB) of working-age populations, but the implications for pensioners, including variance by gender and occupational class, are unclear. We examine this variance using mixed methods on data from Russia, where pensioner employment is comparatively high. Utilizing data on 5,703 individuals ages 45–70 from 12…
Masculinity Restored? Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America
A major legacy of the Soviet Union is the overburdening of Russian women and the demoralization of Russian men. Putin uses hypermasculinity to appeal to these men. Is Trump stealing from Putin’s playbook in wielding masculine bravado as a tool of state power? We may be witnessing a remasculinization of both countries, as gendered performances continue to galvanize waves of populism worldwide
Contested Understandings in the Global Garment Industry after Rana Plaza
This Introduction synthesizes the key themes of this special cluster of articles and explores the implications of the three contributions on garment supply chains after the Rana Plaza disaster. The three articles examine the perspectives of key stakeholders in garment value chains - global buyers, managers of garment factories in Bangladesh, and workers at these factories - and analyses their responses to the new governance initiatives that emerg…
Spillover Effects across Transnational Industrial Relations Agreements
Using qualitative data from interviews with multiple respondents in 45 garment brands and retailers, as well as respondents from unions and other stakeholders, the authors analyze the emergence of the Action Collaboration Transformation (ACT) living wages initiative. They ask how the inter-firm coordination and firm-union cooperation demanded by a multi-firm transnational industrial relations agreement (TIRA) developed. Synthesizing insights from…
Anatomy of a Stalled Revolution
Russia's gender revolution notoriously produced women's economic empowerment without domestic equality. Although the Soviet state vastly expanded women's employment, this had little impact on a starkly unequal gender division of domestic labor. Such 'stalling' is common, but in Russia its extent and persistence presents a puzzle, requiring us to investigate linkages between macro-level factors and micro-level interactions regarding the gender div…
“Behind Every Great Man…”
Studies across diverse national contexts reliably show that married men earn more than unmarried men, but the mechanisms responsible for this are still disputed. This article explores the male marriage wage premium from a new perspective, using longitudinal qualitative data from Russia ( N = 94). Qualitative research is particularly suited to identifying underlying processes and, by analyzing men's accounts of the influence of their marital traje…
Gendering Reciprocity
Theories of reciprocity have been surprisingly gender-blind. We develop a gendered account of reciprocity using qualitative data from Russia. We focus on gifts of unpaid task assistance, where gender differences are particularly visible. In our data, women's gifts of labor involve greater time and effort than men's, but women report nonreciprocation, while men do not. Paradoxically, the most onerous gifts are those least likely to be reciprocated…
Gender, State and Society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia
Cherchez la Femme
Journal Article Cherchez la Femme: Women as Supporting Actors in the Russian Labour Market Get access Sarah Ashwin, Sarah Ashwin Department of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Valery Yakubovich Valery Yakubovich The University of Chicago GSB, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60657, USA. E…
Men in Crisis in Russia
A key feature of economic transition in Russia has been the demoralization of men at the lower end of the labor market. Rather than focusing on the labor market directly, this article looks at how men's position within the household influences their ability to deal with their employment difficulties. Men's main role within the household is as primary breadwinners, and there are few other tasks in the urban Russian household that are seen as mascu…
The Influence of the Soviet Gender Order on Employment Behavior in Contemporary Russia
This article examines the employment behavior of men and women during economic transition and the way in which this has been shaped by norms inherited from the Soviet past. Economic reform has not had the anticipated impact on male and female employment levels. From the moment that unemployment was legalized in July 1991, the generally accepted view in Russian society was that unemployment was primarily a female problem [31, p. 26]. Meanwhile, a …
Women's Lives under Socialism
Anna Hilly ar and Jane McDermid, Revolutionary Women in Russia, 1870-1917: A Study in Collective Biography (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000). Sheila Fitzpatrick and Yuri Slezkine, eds., In the Shadow of the Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000). Susan Gal and Gail Kligman, The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Compara tiv…
Uncertain Transition
The ethnographies collected here offer a surprising and compelling picture of change in Russia and Eastern Europe found in no other book to date. Looking at the everyday processes by which individuals and groups forge new lives, the authors challenge the idea that we can understand this transformation by the predictable models_whether capitalism, post-socialism, modernity, or postmodernity. The collection brings together a wide-ranging group of a…
Endless Patience
Various arguments have been put forward to explain the social stability of the post-Stalin era, in particular theories of a “social contract”, “incorporation” or “atomisation”. This article argues that all these theories have been cast into serious doubt by the response of workers to the reforms of the post-communist era and proposes an alternative view of the integration of workers which centres on the social organisation of the traditional Sovi…
Do Russian women want to work?
From the very beginning of change in the Soviet Union it was predicted that economic and political reforms would have a significant impact on women. In particular, there was an expectation that unemployment would be an inevitable consequence of restructuring, and that women would be the worst afflicted by this: 'that unemployment was primarily a female problem became practically a universally accepted point of view in Russian society from the mom…
Shopfloor Trade Unionism in Russia
Forms of Collectivity in a Non-Monetary Society
This article examines the paradoxical co-existence of collectivity and passivity among Russian workers, which is linked to the non-monetary character of Soviet society. The article, based on fieldwork carried out in a mining village in Western Siberia, examines three distinct forms of collectivity: the symbolic collectivism of the enterprise as a whole; the collective identification of ordinary workers; and the collectivity of the immediate work …
There's no joy any more’
OUR MISERABLE SITUATION HAS BECOME UNBEARABLE'; that was the statement chosen by a full 32% of Russians to describe their current situation in a September 1994 survey carried out by the Russian Centre for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM). Only 11.5% opted for 'things are not so bad and it is possible to live', while 46.8% felt that 'life is difficult but nevertheless one can endure it'.1 Whilst this shows that a majority of Russians are displayin…
Men in Crisis in Russia
A key feature of economic transition in Russia has been the demoralization of men at the lower end of the labor market. Rather than focusing on the labor market directly, this article looks at how men's position within the household influences their ability to deal with their employment difficulties. Men's main role within the household is as primary breadwinners, and there are few other tasks in the urban Russian household that are seen as mascu…
Spillover Effects across Transnational Industrial Relations Agreements
Using qualitative data from interviews with multiple respondents in 45 garment brands and retailers, as well as respondents from unions and other stakeholders, the authors analyze the emergence of the Action Collaboration Transformation (ACT) living wages initiative. They ask how the inter-firm coordination and firm-union cooperation demanded by a multi-firm transnational industrial relations agreement (TIRA) developed. Synthesizing insights from…
Gendering Reciprocity
Theories of reciprocity have been surprisingly gender-blind. We develop a gendered account of reciprocity using qualitative data from Russia. We focus on gifts of unpaid task assistance, where gender differences are particularly visible. In our data, women's gifts of labor involve greater time and effort than men's, but women report nonreciprocation, while men do not. Paradoxically, the most onerous gifts are those least likely to be reciprocated…
Anatomy of a Stalled Revolution
Russia's gender revolution notoriously produced women's economic empowerment without domestic equality. Although the Soviet state vastly expanded women's employment, this had little impact on a starkly unequal gender division of domestic labor. Such 'stalling' is common, but in Russia its extent and persistence presents a puzzle, requiring us to investigate linkages between macro-level factors and micro-level interactions regarding the gender div…
Endless Patience
Various arguments have been put forward to explain the social stability of the post-Stalin era, in particular theories of a “social contract”, “incorporation” or “atomisation”. This article argues that all these theories have been cast into serious doubt by the response of workers to the reforms of the post-communist era and proposes an alternative view of the integration of workers which centres on the social organisation of the traditional Sovi…
Shopfloor Trade Unionism in Russia
There's no joy any more’
OUR MISERABLE SITUATION HAS BECOME UNBEARABLE'; that was the statement chosen by a full 32% of Russians to describe their current situation in a September 1994 survey carried out by the Russian Centre for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM). Only 11.5% opted for 'things are not so bad and it is possible to live', while 46.8% felt that 'life is difficult but nevertheless one can endure it'.1 Whilst this shows that a majority of Russians are displayin…
Contested Understandings in the Global Garment Industry after Rana Plaza
This Introduction synthesizes the key themes of this special cluster of articles and explores the implications of the three contributions on garment supply chains after the Rana Plaza disaster. The three articles examine the perspectives of key stakeholders in garment value chains - global buyers, managers of garment factories in Bangladesh, and workers at these factories - and analyses their responses to the new governance initiatives that emerg…
Cherchez la Femme
Journal Article Cherchez la Femme: Women as Supporting Actors in the Russian Labour Market Get access Sarah Ashwin, Sarah Ashwin Department of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Valery Yakubovich Valery Yakubovich The University of Chicago GSB, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60657, USA. E…
Pensioner Employment, Well-Being, and Gender
Encouraging pensioner employment is one answer to the challenge of aging societies. Employment positively influences the subjective well-being (SWB) of working-age populations, but the implications for pensioners, including variance by gender and occupational class, are unclear. We examine this variance using mixed methods on data from Russia, where pensioner employment is comparatively high. Utilizing data on 5,703 individuals ages 45–70 from 12…
Women's Lives under Socialism
Anna Hilly ar and Jane McDermid, Revolutionary Women in Russia, 1870-1917: A Study in Collective Biography (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000). Sheila Fitzpatrick and Yuri Slezkine, eds., In the Shadow of the Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000). Susan Gal and Gail Kligman, The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Compara tiv…
Forms of Collectivity in a Non-Monetary Society
This article examines the paradoxical co-existence of collectivity and passivity among Russian workers, which is linked to the non-monetary character of Soviet society. The article, based on fieldwork carried out in a mining village in Western Siberia, examines three distinct forms of collectivity: the symbolic collectivism of the enterprise as a whole; the collective identification of ordinary workers; and the collectivity of the immediate work …
There's no joy any more’
OUR MISERABLE SITUATION HAS BECOME UNBEARABLE'; that was the statement chosen by a full 32% of Russians to describe their current situation in a September 1994 survey carried out by the Russian Centre for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM). Only 11.5% opted for 'things are not so bad and it is possible to live', while 46.8% felt that 'life is difficult but nevertheless one can endure it'.1 Whilst this shows that a majority of Russians are displayin…
Forms of Collectivity in a Non-Monetary Society
This article examines the paradoxical co-existence of collectivity and passivity among Russian workers, which is linked to the non-monetary character of Soviet society. The article, based on fieldwork carried out in a mining village in Western Siberia, examines three distinct forms of collectivity: the symbolic collectivism of the enterprise as a whole; the collective identification of ordinary workers; and the collectivity of the immediate work …
Do Russian women want to work?
From the very beginning of change in the Soviet Union it was predicted that economic and political reforms would have a significant impact on women. In particular, there was an expectation that unemployment would be an inevitable consequence of restructuring, and that women would be the worst afflicted by this: 'that unemployment was primarily a female problem became practically a universally accepted point of view in Russian society from the mom…
Shopfloor Trade Unionism in Russia
Endless Patience
Various arguments have been put forward to explain the social stability of the post-Stalin era, in particular theories of a “social contract”, “incorporation” or “atomisation”. This article argues that all these theories have been cast into serious doubt by the response of workers to the reforms of the post-communist era and proposes an alternative view of the integration of workers which centres on the social organisation of the traditional Sovi…
Uncertain Transition
The ethnographies collected here offer a surprising and compelling picture of change in Russia and Eastern Europe found in no other book to date. Looking at the everyday processes by which individuals and groups forge new lives, the authors challenge the idea that we can understand this transformation by the predictable models_whether capitalism, post-socialism, modernity, or postmodernity. The collection brings together a wide-ranging group of a…
The Influence of the Soviet Gender Order on Employment Behavior in Contemporary Russia
This article examines the employment behavior of men and women during economic transition and the way in which this has been shaped by norms inherited from the Soviet past. Economic reform has not had the anticipated impact on male and female employment levels. From the moment that unemployment was legalized in July 1991, the generally accepted view in Russian society was that unemployment was primarily a female problem [31, p. 26]. Meanwhile, a …
Women's Lives under Socialism
Anna Hilly ar and Jane McDermid, Revolutionary Women in Russia, 1870-1917: A Study in Collective Biography (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000). Sheila Fitzpatrick and Yuri Slezkine, eds., In the Shadow of the Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000). Susan Gal and Gail Kligman, The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Compara tiv…
Men in Crisis in Russia
A key feature of economic transition in Russia has been the demoralization of men at the lower end of the labor market. Rather than focusing on the labor market directly, this article looks at how men's position within the household influences their ability to deal with their employment difficulties. Men's main role within the household is as primary breadwinners, and there are few other tasks in the urban Russian household that are seen as mascu…
Cherchez la Femme
Journal Article Cherchez la Femme: Women as Supporting Actors in the Russian Labour Market Get access Sarah Ashwin, Sarah Ashwin Department of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Valery Yakubovich Valery Yakubovich The University of Chicago GSB, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60657, USA. E…
Gender, State and Society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia
Gendering Reciprocity
Theories of reciprocity have been surprisingly gender-blind. We develop a gendered account of reciprocity using qualitative data from Russia. We focus on gifts of unpaid task assistance, where gender differences are particularly visible. In our data, women's gifts of labor involve greater time and effort than men's, but women report nonreciprocation, while men do not. Paradoxically, the most onerous gifts are those least likely to be reciprocated…
“Behind Every Great Man…”
Studies across diverse national contexts reliably show that married men earn more than unmarried men, but the mechanisms responsible for this are still disputed. This article explores the male marriage wage premium from a new perspective, using longitudinal qualitative data from Russia ( N = 94). Qualitative research is particularly suited to identifying underlying processes and, by analyzing men's accounts of the influence of their marital traje…
Anatomy of a Stalled Revolution
Russia's gender revolution notoriously produced women's economic empowerment without domestic equality. Although the Soviet state vastly expanded women's employment, this had little impact on a starkly unequal gender division of domestic labor. Such 'stalling' is common, but in Russia its extent and persistence presents a puzzle, requiring us to investigate linkages between macro-level factors and micro-level interactions regarding the gender div…
Masculinity Restored? Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America
A major legacy of the Soviet Union is the overburdening of Russian women and the demoralization of Russian men. Putin uses hypermasculinity to appeal to these men. Is Trump stealing from Putin’s playbook in wielding masculine bravado as a tool of state power? We may be witnessing a remasculinization of both countries, as gendered performances continue to galvanize waves of populism worldwide
Contested Understandings in the Global Garment Industry after Rana Plaza
This Introduction synthesizes the key themes of this special cluster of articles and explores the implications of the three contributions on garment supply chains after the Rana Plaza disaster. The three articles examine the perspectives of key stakeholders in garment value chains - global buyers, managers of garment factories in Bangladesh, and workers at these factories - and analyses their responses to the new governance initiatives that emerg…
Spillover Effects across Transnational Industrial Relations Agreements
Using qualitative data from interviews with multiple respondents in 45 garment brands and retailers, as well as respondents from unions and other stakeholders, the authors analyze the emergence of the Action Collaboration Transformation (ACT) living wages initiative. They ask how the inter-firm coordination and firm-union cooperation demanded by a multi-firm transnational industrial relations agreement (TIRA) developed. Synthesizing insights from…
Pensioner Employment, Well-Being, and Gender
Encouraging pensioner employment is one answer to the challenge of aging societies. Employment positively influences the subjective well-being (SWB) of working-age populations, but the implications for pensioners, including variance by gender and occupational class, are unclear. We examine this variance using mixed methods on data from Russia, where pensioner employment is comparatively high. Utilizing data on 5,703 individuals ages 45–70 from 12…
An inspired collaboration with Russian sociologists
In 1990, Simon Clarke inaugurated two decades of research of the former Soviet Union through an international collaboration with Russian sociologists that examined a society in the throes of transformation. Along with his colleague Peter Fairbrother, Simon developed a network of Russian researchers in the Institute of Comparative Labour Relations Research. Together they produced a corpus of work that meticulously analysed the impact of economic r…
Going Global
This article, based on stakeholder interviews and document analysis, compares the development of supply chain labor governance institutions in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany beginning in the late 1990s. The authors address the puzzle of why the United Kingdom's union-inclusive multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI), the Ethical Trading Initiative, rose to national dominance, while two similar MSIs failed in Germany (the Roundtable Codes of C…
Political science (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Economics (13 works) · Law (10 works) · Politics (8 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works)