Shadrina, A;
(2025)
The Babushka Phenomenon: Older women and the political sociology of ageing in Russia.
[Book].
FRINGE.
UCL Press: London, UK.
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Abstract
The Babushka Phenomenon examines the social production of ageing in post-Soviet Russia, highlighting the role of grandmothers as primary caregivers due to men's traditional estrangement from family life. This expectation places grandmothers, or babushkas, in a position where they prioritise childcare and housework over their careers, making them unpaid family carers reliant on the state and their children. Anna Shadrina situates older Russian women's experiences within the post-Soviet redefinition of the nation, analysing their portrayal in popular media and biographical narratives of women aged 60 and over in Russia and the UK. It addresses class and racial disparities, noting how some women outsource family duties to less qualified women, and emphasises age as a significant but overlooked axis of social inequality. From a feminist perspective, the book explores citizenship as both a status and a practice of inclusion and exclusion. By focusing on older women's rights to participate in private and public spheres, it discusses the new social inequalities that emerged after the USSR's collapse. Despite prioritising others' interests, older Russian women actively engage in economic citizenship, though their struggles for recognition are often excluded from formal economy and politics.
| Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Babushka Phenomenon: Older women and the political sociology of ageing in Russia |
| ISBN-13: | 9781800089099 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.9781800089099 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800089099 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © Author, 2025 Any third-party material in this book is not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence. Details of the copyright ownership and permitted use of third-party material is given in the image (or extract) credit lines. Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright owner. This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/ 4.0/. This licence allows you to share and adapt the work for non-commercial use providing attribution is made to the author and publisher (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work) and any changes are indicated. Attribution should include the following information: Shadrina, A. 2025. The Babushka Phenomenon: Older women and the political sociology of ageing in Russia. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800089099 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ |
| Keywords: | Babushka identity, Older women and informal welfare, Post-socialism and grandmothering, Putin's Russia Imperialism and ageing, Autocratic regimes and ageing |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10214021 |
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