This paper consists of a dissertation for the cand. polit. degree in sociology, written as a part of the project ”Social Policy and Social Exclusion in the Baltic Countries”. The paper concerns women’s labour market participation in Latvia in the latter half of the 1990s and draws on analyses of data from the NORBALT living conditions surveys, conducted in 1994 and 1999. The subject explored is whether women were in fact pushed out of the labour market as a consequence of the vast changes in social policies during this decade. This was a common assumption in research on Eastern Europe dating mostly from the early 1990s. Later research - this paper included – has questioned whether this was really the case. A tentative explanation for women’s higher than expected labour market participation rates is offered in the nature of structural changes in the labour market in the period and the dramatic changes in fertility. The question is related to general theoretical discussions on the impact of social policy on women’s relationship with paid work and family obligations.
