y. As a result of the growing number of
working women the roles of the husband and wife are no longer as clearly
differentiated. Almost two-thirds of women aged over fifteen in 1966
were employed. Approximately three-fourths of these were married women
who had assumed some of the husband's role of provider for the family.
At the same time they had relinquished some of their former functions in
the household and with respect to children, some of which have been
taken over by husbands or by outside institutions.

Social Stratification

Patterns of social stratification have undergone a complete change since
World War II. First, land reform immediately after the war eliminated
the agricultural aristocracy and increased the number of small peasants
who owned their own land. Then nationalization of industry and commerce
in the late 1940s eliminated the urban propertied class. Finally,
collectivization of agriculture eliminated most of the newly enlarged
small peasant class. By the early 1950s the old system had been
destroyed, and a new one was in the process of formation.

The period of so-called socialist reconstruction of the 1950s resulted
in a general leveling of social strata through the demotion of formerly
privileged groups and the promotion of formerly underprivileged groups.
Persons of peasant or worker origin received preferential treatment in
the allocation of housing and other necessities of life that were in
short supply, in the appointment to jobs, and in access to higher
education. At the same time persons of middle or upper class background
were deprived of their housing, removed from key jobs, and denied
educational opportunities for their children through a discriminatory
quota system at secondary and higher schools. A policy of equalizing
incomes made little distinction between differing levels of education or
skill, thus eliminating material rewards as a basis for social
stratification. At the same time, however, a small group of party
stalwarts, most of them of lower or middle class background, rose
rapidly into the top positions of administrative and political power and
became the new ruling elite.

As viewed by its own ideologists and sociologists, Romania in 1971 was
in the socialist stage of development heading toward a classless
communist society. This meant that there were distinctions in income,
standard of living, and prestige among different groups in the society;
the distinctions, howeve