WOMENS LABOR SUPPLY IN CENTRAL-EUROPE DURING THE PERIOD OF SYSTEMIC CHANGE

During the Communist period, women in Central Europe had a very high l abour force participation rate, mainly because of a shortage of manpow er. During the first years of the period of systemic change, this rate fell. However, on the whole, people over the legal retirement age are particularly affected by the the labour market's evolution, and the p ercentage decrease in the activity rate is about the same for both men and women everywhere except in Hungary. By estimating a Probit model, the decrease in women's participation rate turns out to be mainly due both to more women (everywhere except in Poland) taking child-care le ave and to the lower wages being offered to them. Unlike in the West, the husband's income level and joblessness rate has little negative im pact on the probability that the wife works.