Send message to Authors

Abstract

This paper develops the concept of the family cage as a central analytical framework for understanding how family-based norms structure employment decisions and organisational inequality in Kazakhstan. Labour markets are formally governed by meritocratic criteria such as skills and experience, but our study shows that professional evaluations are systematically mediated by workers’ family status, anticipated family trajectories, and conformity to gendered family roles.

The family cage refers to a socio-cultural mechanism through which family status is used as an institutionalised principle of workplace evaluation. Both women and men are assessed through marital status, parental responsibilities, and moral expectations attached to normative family roles. For men, marriage functions as a marker of stability and responsibility, unmarried men are viewed as unreliable. For women, even unmarried, employability is shaped by assumptions of inevitable motherhood and extensive caregiving obligations.

The paper asks how the family cage becomes embedded in organisational practices and how it produces gender-differentiated labour market outcomes. The analysis shifts attention from individual discrimination to organisational mechanisms through which family-based norms become legitimate criteria in hiring, promotion, and job allocation.

Theoretically, the study draws on feminist theories of gendered organisations and social reproduction, integrating insights from the literature on familialism, the ideal worker norm, the maternal wall, and flexibility stigma. A post-socialist feminist perspective situates the family cage within a context where neoliberal meritocratic discourse coexists with strong kin-based moral economies.

Empirically, the paper employs a mixed-methods design combining qualitative interviews with HR managers across multiple sectors and an original quantitative survey (N = 320). Interviews reveal that family status is routinely treated as a valid basis for employment decisions, with hiring processes involving questions about marital status, children, reproductive plans, and spousal approval. Survey data show that women—especially those with young children—face systematic exclusion, while men’s family status, particularly marriage, often enhances perceived reliability.

The paper argues that the family cage operates as a gendered sorting mechanism that naturalises inequality by framing discriminatory practices as culturally appropriate and morally justified.

Send message to Authors

Abstract

This paper examines how gendered constructions of work–life balance function as structural and symbolic mechanisms of power limiting women’s advancement to executive leadership in Kazakhstan’s rapidly digitalizing IT sector. While global debates on women in STEM frequently emphasize individual ambition or skills deficits, this study situates leadership attrition within post-Soviet institutional legacies, organizational cultures, and enduring cultural norms surrounding motherhood and caregiving. Drawing on Hochschild and Machung’s (1989) concept of the “second shift,” Acker’s (1990) theory of gendered organizations and the “ideal worker,” Williams’s (2001) maternal wall framework, and Hays’s (1998) notion of intensive motherhood, the paper analyzes how gendered expectations are reproduced within contemporary digital workplaces.

The research employs a sequential mixed-methods design. Quantitative workforce data were collected from 32 IT companies in Kazakhstan to assess gender distribution across entry, mid-level, and executive positions. These data are complemented by 13 in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with mid- and senior-level women managers. Descriptive statistical analysis and thematic coding were used to identify structural patterns and lived experiences of career progression.

Findings reveal a pronounced leadership drop-off: although women constitute approximately 43% of the workforce and reach mid-level management at near parity with men, their representation at C-level declines sharply, with only 1.4% advancing from entry-level to executive roles. Promotion probabilities decrease in larger firms. Qualitative evidence shows that caregiving responsibilities operate as a central career filter. The “ideal worker” norm (Acker, 1990), characterized by constant availability and temporal flexibility, conflicts with culturally embedded expectations of intensive motherhood (Hays, 1998), generating moral dilemmas between family and career. Formal flexibility policies often carry stigma, reinforcing maternal wall dynamics (Williams, 2001).

By integrating feminist organizational theory with post-Soviet institutional analysis, the paper argues that leadership exclusion reflects not individual choice but the interaction of gendered cultural norms, care infrastructures, and organizational power structures. In doing so, it rethinks Central Eurasian digital transformation as a site where economic modernization coexists with deeply embedded gendered inequalities.

Send message to Author

Abstract

Research on maternal discrimination in hiring has been largely concentrated in Western contexts, where the "motherhood penalty," the systematic disadvantage mothers face relative to childless women and men, is well documented. In Kazakhstan as part of the post-Soviet world, employed motherhood may carry a different cultural context and legacy, and motherhood bias may therefore also operate differently. There is a separate stream on the intersection of policy, management, and psychology that examines how agentic traits, such as competence, ambition, and independence, shape hiring evaluations. This paper applies the multidimensional model of agency provided by Ma et al. (2022) in two vignette experiments conducted in Kazakhstan, representing the first experimental investigation of maternal hiring discrimination in Central Asia.

The first experiment employed a 2×2 between-subjects design in which evaluators (N=171, alumni of graduate programs) assessed a hypothetical job candidate varying by gender (female vs. male) and parental status (parent vs. non-parent). Contrary to hypotheses derived from Western literature, mothers did not receive lower hiring recommendations than childless women. Female candidates were rated significantly higher on independence and commitment relative to male candidates. However, these favorable agentic attributions did not translate into corresponding hiring advantages, which requires further investigation.

The second experiment, using the same evaluator sample, manipulated parental leave duration across three levels (six months, one and a half years, and three years) to examine how leave length shapes hiring evaluations. Extended leave of three years significantly reduced hiring recommendations relative to shorter durations. Mediation analyses indicated that this penalty operated through diminished perceptions of competence and work priority. Male evaluators who were themselves parents imposed the most pronounced penalty for extended leave.

These findings point that in Kazakhstan, where working motherhood has long been a social norm rather than an exception, gender and parental status alone do not reliably predict hiring disadvantage. Extended duration of leave, on the other hand, works as a more consequential signal than motherhood status itself, with penalties operating through perceptions of competence and work commitment. Extending parental leave entitlements without addressing how prolonged absence is evaluated by employers may have unintended consequences and undermine the very goals such policies are designed to achieve.

Send message to Author

Abstract

Perceptions of gender discrimination are formed unevenly and depend on social and economic variables. Recent research shows that different population groups recognize and interpret manifestations of gender inequality differently. The aim of this study is to identify key socioeconomic predictors of perceived gender discrimination and analyze how these factors manifest themselves in the context of Kazakhstan. This study provides analyzed data from the Life in Transitions Survey with econometric methods, such as ordered logistic model. Our findings show that perceived gender discrimination is higher among women, the younger generation and workers in specific job sectors. These results underscore the importance of gender economics in constructing public policy. The paper also empirically supports and extends past research on this topic.

Keywords: perceived gender discrimination, men and women, Kazakhstan, employment