Levels of Sociocultural Development Among Soviet Nationalities: A Partial Test of the Equalization Hypothesis

Recent studies of regional economic development of the Soviet Union have suggested that since 1958, Soviet union republics have become less equal in their levels of industrialization, share of investments, and living standards. This paper assesses the degree to which equality of social and cultural development characterizes Soviet ethnic groups and union republics. Drawing aggregate data chiefly from the 1926, 1959, and 1970 Soviet censuses, the analysis shows that: (1) relative variation (inequality) in the sociocultural development of Soviet nationalities has declined continuously and markedly over time on measures of education and occupational structure, but that large inter-nationality disparities remain in the development of skilled manpower; (2) inter-nationality variation in family role structures has been slower to decline than differences in education and appears to follow a curvilinear pattern: for a time during the Soviet era, inter-nationality differences increased but have been followed recently by significant declines. Furthermore, it is shown that (3) on the average the sociocultural development of union republic populations well exceeds the development of the indigenous nationalities in these republics.