Who has a worse life in Russia

In this article, we debunk the myth propagated by feminists, the bourgeoisie, and various pseudo-leftists that women are allegedly underpaid by 20% or more at work. We also explain why working men in Russia live far worse and suffer losses that are, by the most conservative estimates, 100 times greater than those of women.

Let’s start by calculating the losses for both groups over a 20-year period. We deliberately choose such a conditionally long-term period to demonstrate the overall scale of the problem. Adjusting the timeframe downward might change the result by a factor of 5-10, but this is negligible compared to the final figure.

According to Rosstat data from early 2025, Russia’s active working-age population was approximately 80 million people, including 36.5 million women and 42.7 million men. Notably, despite there being over 10 million fewer men than women in Russia overall (67 million versus 78.5 million), there are nearly 7 million more men in the workforce, and this ratio has remained virtually unchanged since the late 2000s.

Furthermore, analysts have found that Russian men work 43% more, or nearly 2 hours more per weekday, than women (based on official Rosstat data on the daily time distribution of employed Russians over 15 years old). Additionally, the number of men working more than 40 hours per week is roughly twice that of women, while the average salary of women, according to Rosstat, is 72% of men’s (ranging from 60-83% depending on the region).

At this stage, everything seems perfectly logical—women work less, so they earn less. It’s also noteworthy that over the past 10 years, according to Rosstat estimates, women’s salaries have not only steadily increased but have also gradually approached men’s. However, does the amount of time women spend working compared to men increase? There’s likely no definitive answer yet, but according to analysts, probably not.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, as we’re only talking about official figures so far. If we also consider the “gray” economy, which still accounts for a significant portion in Russia, the disparity becomes even greater.

According to a recent study by the hh.ru portal, the highest share of daily overworked Russians is found in the construction sector (88% of respondents) and logistics (82%)—industries where men make up a significant portion of workers (around 88% and 80%, respectively). Adding manufacturing (around 80% of respondents), the gap in overtime hours compared to sectors like education and services, where women are predominantly employed, becomes quite substantial.

In other words, garage cooperatives, repairs, and construction—purely “male” employment sectors—where, according to studies, overtime can reach up to 6 hours depending on the season, which is up to 4 times more than the working hours in other, more “female” sectors. Thus, men work 2-4 times more than women and should, accordingly, earn 4 times more. But here’s the paradox: they only earn 28% more. In other words, they are being shortchanged by a factor of 4! And this isn’t just in Russia—this is happening almost worldwide.

At this point, one could consider the issue settled, but we wouldn’t be Marxists if we didn’t thoroughly examine the issue from all angles. Let’s assume that the statistics of the bourgeois state and feminists are initially correct, and the bourgeoisie does indeed underpay women by, say, 20% of their hypothetical “equal-to-men” salary each month. How would we proceed?

Let’s calculate how much this amounts to for the entire female population of Russia. According to statistics, only about 50% of economically active adult women in Russia are officially employed, roughly 30 million. Let’s take an average salary of 40,000 rubles, of which women lose 20%—or 8,000 rubles—per month. This means women are collectively underpaid 240 billion rubles per month (8,000 rubles * 30 million women) or 2,880 billion per year. Since we’ll later compare long-term losses, let’s multiply this by 20 to get 5,760 billion in so-called “female losses” over 20 years.

Now, let’s calculate the losses for men. As we’ve already established, the number of men, despite their overall lower population, always exceeds women by 7-8 million in official employment estimates. But to avoid the righteous wrath of feminists and for greater clarity, let’s assume there are also 30 million working men.

So:

1. The vast majority of men in Russia today either don’t live to retirement age or live no more than 5 years after reaching it, compared to 20-25 years for women. The average monthly pension a man misses out on is approximately 15,000 rubles per month. That’s 180,000 rubles per year, or 3.6 million over 30 years. Multiplying by 30 million working men gives 108,000 billion. Compare this to the previous figure for women’s losses (38,400 billion), and we reach a staggering conclusion: on this point alone, men’s losses are more than twice as high! But this is just the beginning.
2. In modern Russian families, especially in large cities, most men are divorced, primarily at the initiative of women, as official statistics have repeatedly shown. Divorce can potentially affect any working man. How much do men lose from this?

a) A man loses half of his apartment. Let’s estimate the cost of half an apartment at a modest average price by today’s standards—6 million rubles. Multiplied by 30 million, that’s 180,000 billion in men’s losses.

b) If a man’s former family includes a child who, by law, cannot be removed from his apartment, the man will likely have to move out and live in a rented apartment. The minimum cost of such a rental is 15,000 rubles per month. Over 20 years, that’s 3.6 million per man, or 108,000 billion for all 30 million working men.

c) In the case of divorce, a man loses not only his family but also psychological support. How much is the emotional damage from such actions worth? We believe it’s no less than 3 million over 20 years. That’s another 90,000 billion.

d) Alimony. If someone argues that a “single woman” (presumably one who can’t quickly find another “provider,” which in reality is rare) takes on a greater burden of supporting a child, they are either naively mistaken or an enemy of the working class. This is because, under current laws, a child after a divorce is overwhelmingly considered the inalienable property of the woman. The capital a woman invests in the child will, one way or another, return to her in old age, at least in the form of care and material support. A man, however, gets none of this, as he is permanently barred from participating in raising the child after the divorce. At best, he might see the child once a week, and even that’s not guaranteed. Thus, we unhesitatingly include this in the losses of proletarian men: 15,000 rubles * 12 months * 20 years * 30 million men = 108,000 billion.

In total, this calculation yields:

• 180,000 billion – loss of part of the apartment;
• 108,000 billion – rental apartment expenses;
• 90,000 billion – emotional suffering from divorce, psychological manipulation, and loss of children;
• 108,000 billion – alimony expenses (this accounts for the minimum amount, excluding “extra alimony” extorted through blackmail);
• 108,000 billion – pension.

Now, let’s compare the total losses of men and women over 20 years based on just these points:

• 5,760 billion for women (a reminder: this is the alleged 20% “underpayment” feminists claim women face at work);
• 594,000 billion for men.

How many times greater are men’s losses? Let’s calculate: 594,000 billion / 5,760 billion = 103.1 – more than 100 times greater.

And this is far from everything, considering the full list of female privileges, which are far more numerous today and go well beyond pensions and the appropriation of men’s property and children. In reality, men’s losses could be 200 times greater or more!

However, for the purposes of this article, we’ll stop here and draw the main conclusions.

1. We have once again provided compelling evidence that primitive “vaginocapitalism,” or the so-called resource-financial flow “from male to female,” has not disappeared under modern capitalism—on the contrary, it has taken on far more diverse and cunning forms, including indirect ones mediated by the state. In other words, if in a troop of monkeys a male had to at least make minimal contact with a female to offer her a banana, under modern capitalism, this condition is entirely optional. To put it exaggeratedly, a working man can toil his entire life at a factory, round the clock without weekends, never seeing a single woman, yet the state will still monthly siphon off part of his salary and carefully transfer it to a woman’s pocket, including in the form of pensions, maternity capital, various benefits, and so on.
2. Until recently, capitalism wasn’t known for meticulously tracking workers’ salaries to constantly increase them, let alone comparing them to, say, oligarchs’ incomes. It’s especially amusing today to observe the efforts of Rosstat and various bourgeois ministries joyfully reporting on the latest “growth and convergence of women’s salaries with men’s.” There’s nothing surprising here, really. Women today are the main pillar and ally of capitalist power, ensuring, among other things, convincing electoral victories. Contributing no more than 15-20% to the real economy, women are useful to the authorities in a different way: through them, dear working man, capitalism extracts the surplus of your wages, and through them, it controls and, when necessary, suppresses your protest potential. The more laws, benefits, and concessions are granted to women, the faster you are driven into bondage, and your life is reduced to turning you into expended material, without any rights to anything.

It becomes downright laughable when the same authorities start spouting the absurd feminist nonsense about women being “underpaid at work.” We hope this article has debunked that myth once and for all.