U.S.-Soviet quality of life: a comparison - transcript

US Department of State Bulletin, Sept, 1985 by Richard Schifter

The Soviet Union--in prerevolutionary days the world's largest grain exporter--is now the world's largest grain importer. Twenty percent of the Soviet work force works in agriculture, compared to 3% in the United States. Yet the Soviet Union often has had to import up to 25% of its grain. American farmers, who own their own land, are 10 times more productive than their Soviet counterparts. Each year, approximately 20% of the grain, fruit, and vegetable harvest and as much as 50% of the Soviet potato crop perishes because of the poor storage, transportation, and distribution system.

Soviet farmers have not lost their ability to grow crops. They just lack the incentive to do so on a kolkhoz [collective farm]. By contrast, even though private plots, which are farmed by individuals in the early morning and late evening hours, occupy only 4% of the Soviet Union's arable land, they produce 25% of the Soviet Union's total crop output.

Housing Shortages and Deficiencies. Housing in the Soviet Union is in as short supply as most consumer goods. At least 20% of all urban families must share kitchen and toilet facilities with other families. Another 5% live in factory dormitories. Young married couples are typically forced to live with their parents and must wait years for housing of their own.

The housing that does exist is extremely cramped, more so than in any other developed country in the world. The average Soviet citizen has 14 square meters of living space, for example, compared to the 49 square meters available to the average American. This means that there are approximately two people for every room in the Soviet Union, compared with two rooms for every person in the United States. Soviet statistics reveal that in 1983, 32% of all urban housing had no hot water, 23% was without gas, 19% without indoor baths, 12% without central heating, 11% without sewage facilities, and 9% without water.

The housing situation is much worse in the countryside and contains many features reminiscent of the 19th century--or even the 18th. There, for the most part, heating is with fireplaces, food is cooked on wood stoves, out-houses provide the toilet facilities, and water frequently is from a well.

Although there has been much new housing built in the Soviet Union in recent years, almost all of its consists of poorly constructed high-rise apartment buildings, which are even more poorly maintained. At the current rate of construction, the per capita space available to Soviet citizens will begin to approch the Western standard in approximately 150 years. Soviet housing woes should come as no surprise, given the fact that the Soviet Union spends less than one-fifth as much as housing as the United States and well under half of what is spent in Spain and Japan.

Status of Soviet Women. Women in the Soviet Union usually occupy the lowest status and lowest paying jobs in Soviet society. One-third of all working Soviet women, for example, are employed as agricultural laborers. By contrast, only 1.5% of American women are so employed.