Central AsiaThe status of family in Central Asia has always
been very high. A family with many children is a
symbol of wealth and prosperity; it is also a role
model to respect and follow. In the Central Asian
context, marriage is more than a union of two lov-
ing individuals – it is an important alliance, linking
wider kinship networks. Family, being a repro-
ductive unit, also serves as a survival mechanism,
helping to cope with socioeconomic and political
problems, at times of both crisis and peace, by pro-
viding relatives with mutual support and help.
The traditional extended family is predominant
in Central Asia and usually represents a household
with three generations (parents, married sons, and
their children) living together. Big households are
particularly common in rural areas where the
majority of population lives (more than 60 percent
in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). The region is marked
by high birth rates, especially in Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan where, despite some decline in the early
1990s, population growth still remains the highest
compared to other parts of the former Soviet Union.
Usually associated with a high level of consolida-
tion, integrity, and solidarity of family members, at
the same time big families are marked by strict reg-
ulations and strong gender-age hierarchy. Such tra-
ditional families are rarely open to change, and are
an ideal instrument for passing traditional and reli-
gious values from older to younger generations. In
turn, it is traditions and customs that give strength
to these families. Sovietization of Central Asian
society in the twentieth century aimed to uproot the
pillars of the patriarchal family based on Islamic
and traditional values, but its basic principles sur-
vived despite the revolutionary changes that oc-
curred in other spheres of society. The relentless
methods used by the Soviet regime to transform
Central Asian societies in the 1920s and 1930s
forced local culture and traditions inside family
life, creating two parallel systems of values. Thus,
newly imposed ideology could not succeed in erad-
icating traditional views and attitudes that con-
tinue to endure.
Gender roles and responsibilities in traditional
families are predetermined and leave little space for
informed choice or decision. Men are considered
breadwinners and women mothers or “hearth
Household Division of Labor
guardians,” with deviations from socially prescribed
roles not easily accepted by public perceptions.
Marriage is patrilocal, and a couple moves to the
house of the husband’s father, where the young
dutiful bride is expected to do all domestic work,
taking care of her husband, his parents, and unmar-
ried brothers and sisters. According to custom, the
newly married young woman occupies the lowest
rank in a family hierarchy under the supervision of
her mother-in-law and is exploited for her domes-
tic labor – until she establishes herself by giving
birth to sons. In the meantime, her numerous
responsibilities include cleaning, washing, cooking,
and other services, all performed with demonstra-
tion of respect and obedience to her parents-in-law.
In rural areas, domestic chores also include work in
plots of land adjoining the house, for food for fam-
ily consumption, and often milking a cow. But even
in smaller nuclear families more typical of the
urban environment, women have a multitude of
responsibilities ranging between paid and unpaid,
productive and reproductive activities.
The realities of the Soviet period and the current
transition from centrally planned to free market
economy could not leave gender roles completely
unchanged. It is now not only culturally accepted
that women participate in the labor force and con-
tribute to the family budget, but given the current
downturn in the region’s economy, families would
not survive otherwise. However, it is men who con-
tinue to be considered and treated as head of the
family.
In big households with extended families, the
survival strategies dictate that women share their
responsibilities, as in addition to numerous tasks
they already have in both paid and unpaid work,
women contribute to community level activities.
This presumes more service-oriented work that
includes (but is not limited to) preparation of spe-
cial food for numerous weddings, funerals, and
other traditional rituals involving large numbers of
people. These tasks take the entire time and income
of women, leaving no opportunity for them for
self-improvement, personal development, or recre-
ation. The biggest burden falls, however, on rural
women, where lack of facilities (gasification, safe
water, services such as health care, and the like) as well
as bigger families, stronger traditional perceptions,
and growing poverty, make life particularly hard.