Women Gradually Win Struggle with Men on Labor Market

Finance magazine made the list of Russia’s most influential business women. Like it happened several times before, the list is topped by Elena Baturina, the wife of Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. No.2 belongs to Natalia Kaspersky, the wife of the founder of the Kaspersky anti-virus empire. No.3 goes to Olga Pleshakova, the head of Russia’s Transaero Airline.

Elena Baturina, the head of Inteko Company, continues to top the lists of most influential and wealthiest women of Russia. It is even hard to image what could make her step down from the pedestal, the magazine wrote. Mrs. Baturina owns shares the cost of which totals 14 billion rubles. She is also the owner of 58 hectares of land in the south-west of Moscow. Russian media outlets continuously discuss Baturina’s success. However, no one has been able to prove yet that she made her billions with the use of the administrative resource, which her husband supervises.

Other entries on the list are less interesting that Mrs. Baturina.

Natalia Kaspersky climbed straight to the second place on the list. She obviously owes her success to her husband, Evgeny Kaspersky, who created the hugely popular anti-virus program. Kaspersky designed the program, whereas his wife managed to organize its sales. Now Mrs. Kaspersky is busy with developing her own project in the field of information security – Infowatch. Natalia Kaspersky raises four children. Her youngest daughter, Maria, turned one on March 5.

The third place on the list is taken by Olga Pleshakova, the general director of Transaero airline. She managed to take her company up to the second position on the list of Russia’s largest airlines.

The list made by Finance magazine has many CEOs, presidents, and general directors of female sex. There is nothing surprising about it, specialists believe: women can be more attractive, responsible, accurate and less demanding when it comes to salary expectations.

Employers may often prefer a female to a male. Women expect smaller salaries, whereas men ask for 40 percent more. As a result, women gradually win the struggle with men on the labor market. The share of women among salaried employees increased from 42.8 percent in 1999 to 47.3 percent in 2009.

Ekaterina Yevstigneyeva.