MOSCOW, 17 February 2025. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the results of a survey about female leadership.
Stereotypes: what is left?
Russian society still associates leadership with men. This point of view is typical of both men and women: male leadership is steadily viewed as dominant, however over the recent century much effort has been made to achieve gender equality. This might be due to the two stereotypes.
Male exclusive role stereotype is based on the characteristics usually ascribed to men. For example, Russians say that men possess innate qualities such as decisiveness, activeness, willpower, and physical superiority. People often bring forward an argument about ‘man’s evolutionary role’. Less than one-tenth of respondents supports female leaders; and their position is purely grounded upon female individual qualities, namely responsibility, intellect, moral stamina, et cet.
The other stereotype is about traditionally female areas, where women are allowed as an exception, such as education and healthcare, as they deal with care, communication and service. In fact, the role of women within the family is transformed into the female societal role in general. On the contrary, areas such as administration, technology, engineering and science are not mentioned as female areas, which is unfair: there is plenty of evidence of women who have achieved success in those areas.
Prospects: what is changing?
However, young people, especially Zoomers and Younger Millennials, show another trend: they do not pay much attention to the gender of a boss. This generation was brought up in an environment where the gender equality issue is openly discussed and female leaders become more common.
Overall, leadership in Russia is still influenced by significant prejudices which limit female career opportunities. Importantly, women themselves also follow this trend, which only reinforces the idea of gendered jobs in society. Breaking down stereotypes and promoting female leadership are key to fair and diverse professional environment.
Russian VCIOM-Sputnik telephone survey was conducted February 2, 2025. A total of 1,600 respondents aged 18 and older took part in the survey. Survey method: telephone interview, stratified random sample based on a complete list of mobile phone numbers in use in Russia. The data were weighted for socio-demographic characteristics. The margin of error at a 95% confidence level does not exceed 2.5%. In addition to sampling error, minor changes to the wording of questions and different circumstances arising during the fieldwork can introduce bias into the survey.
Key effectiveness indicators, survey of 2 February 2025: cooperation rate (CR)* = 0.7470; minimum response rate (MRR)** = 0.0169; response rate (RR)*** = 0.0824. Calculations are based on corporate standard https://profi.wciom.ru/principy_standarty/korporativnyj-standart-po-izmereniyu-rezultativnosti-oprosov-sputnik-vciom/
* CR: the number of complete interviews divided by the sum of: а) complete interviews and b) non-interviews with eligible respondents.
** MRR: the number of complete interviews divided by the sum of: а) complete interviews, b) interrupted interviews after successful screening and c) all the respondents where it is unknown whether they meet the selected criteria or not.
** RR is calculated in the same way as MRR, with the only difference that the number of respondents with unknown eligibility decreases proportional to the percentage of eligible cases in the total number of respondents with identified eligibility or non-eligibility.
Speaking in general, would you prefer your leader to be a man, a woman, or is gender unimportant at all? (closed-ended question, one answer, % of total respondents) | |||||||||
| Total | Men | Women | Digital generation (2001 and later) | Younger Millennials (1992—2000) | Older Millennials (1982—1991) | Reform generation (1968—1981) | Stagnation generation (1948—1967) | Thaw generation (before 1947) |
Likely man | 33 | 39 | 29 | 22 | 35 | 30 | 35 | 35 | 40 |
Likely woman | 3 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
Gender does not matter | 61 | 57 | 63 | 71 | 59 | 64 | 60 | 59 | 54 |
Don’t know | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
In your opinion, who is more prone to leadership – men or women? And why? (closed-ended question, one answer, % of total respondents) | |||||||||
| Total | Men | Women | Digital generation (2001 and later) | Younger Millennials (1992—2000) | Older Millennials (1982—1991) | Reform generation (1968—1981) | Stagnation generation (1948—1967) | Thaw generation (before 1947) |
Men because… | 48 | 55 | 42 | 44 | 48 | 51 | 47 | 50 | 41 |
Women because… | 8 | 5 | 11 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 11 | 7 |
Gender does not matter because… | 34 | 31 | 37 | 42 | 39 | 34 | 36 | 29 | 31 |
Don’t know | 10 | 9 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 10 | 21 |
Men because…. (open-ended question, one answer, % of those who marked “men”) | |
| Total |
Male character qualities: leader, main, smart, reserved, unemotional, active, decisive, someone who achieves the goals set, willpower, strong spirit, strong character | 33 |
Leadership is innate, it’s genetic, the man is the breadwinner, the woman is busy with the family, house | 29 |
Masculine, physically strong, protector because he is a man | 22 |
Stereotypes that have developed in society | 9 |
Other | 4 |
Don’t know | 3 |
Women because… (open-ended question, one answer, % of those who marked “women”) | |
| Total |
Female character qualities: smart, wise, educated, responsible, active, goal-oriented, ambitious, morally stronger, leaders, they can solve any problems | 82 |
It’s meant to be that way by nature | 4 |
Other | 12 |
Don’t know | 2 |
Gender does not matter because… (open-ended question, one answer, % of those who marked “gender does not matter”) | |
| Total |
Leadership, ambition, character and personal qualities are important | 46 |
Both men and women | 38 |
Education and upbringing | 5 |
Other | 7 |
Don’t know | 4 |
In your opinion, are there areas that should be headed by women rather than men, or not? (open-ended question, one answer, % of total respondents) | |
| Total |
Education, upbringing/ schools, kindergartens, pre-school institutions | 16 |
Healthcare / medicine / hospitals / pharmaceutics | 9 |
Beauty industry / beauty / beauty salons / beauty industry | 4 |
Service / commerce | 3 |
Social sphere / social protection | 3 |
Art/culture | 2 |
Consumer goods manufacturing / textile industry/ garment industry / fashion | 2 |
Food industry / food / catering / restaurants, canteens | 2 |
Accounting/ finance/ economics/ banking | 2 |
Motherhood and childhood / protection of women and children / demography / family | 2 |
Administration / administrative positions / civil service | 2 |
No, no such areas | 29 |
Other | 2 |
Don’t know | 20 |
Why do you think the areas you mentioned should be headed by women? Several answers are possible (open-ended question, up to 5 answers, % of total respondents, % от тех, кто назвал сферы) | |
| Total |
Female traits, qualities: kinder / more empathetic / compassion / attention to people / kind heartedness / care / they understand people better / more attentive / persevering / more scrupulous / more prudent / calmer / more patient / more adequate / more practical/ more sensitive / more emotional/ softer / soft approach/ responsible / smarter, wiser/ flexibility / creative / more creative / they will bring order, tendency towards order / sociable, diplomatic/ intuition, gut feeling / sense of beauty / taste / they feel beauty / another way of thinking / specific mindset / another mindset | 48 |
Competence in specific areas: more competent in this area / they understand more / more experienced/ closer to them / closer to the topic/ more suitable, it matches character traits / it is easier for a woman in this area / they cope better /it inspires more confidence | 25 |
Traditional female activities: closer to children / maternity / upbringing/ housewifery / housekeeping / hearthkeeping / it is what it is / it’s common / traditional / the way we were raised/ it’s been like that since childhood | 23 |
Female profession / not suitable for men/ other areas are not suitable/ not so responsible /it does not require quick important decision-making/they are interested in it / they like it/ female team / woman can understand another woman better | 12 |
Nature / physiology / prepossession/it's typical for them / it does not require physical activity/ force | 7 |
Other | 13 |
Don’t know | 11 |
Author: Ivan Gruzinov