The formerly socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have experienced a remarkable demographic transformation in the past twenty years. On many dimensions of fertility and family formation, much of the region now looks like Western Europe-below-replacement fertility...

The formerly socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have experienced a remarkable demographic transformation in the past twenty years. On many dimensions of fertility and family formation, much of the region now looks like Western Europe-below-replacement fertility...

Under socialism, women in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union fared relatively well in the labor market: female-male wage differentials were similar to those in Western Europe and the United States, and female labor force participation rates were among the highest in the world. Have women in...

Can a policy intervention in the stressful first year after a birth affect marital stability? We examine this question using a large expansion in maternity benefits in 1982 in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The program provided partially paid leave until the child's first...

Under state socialism, women fared relatively well in the labor market: female-male wage differentials were similar to those in the West, and female labor force participation rates were among the highest in the world. Have these women maintained their relative positions since the introduction of...

This paper examines changes in human development in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) since 1990. Three main areas of human development in the region are discussed in detail: (i) changes in wage and income inequality; (ii) trends in mortality and life expectancy;...