[custom_adv] Tajikistan is a country in Central Asia, with a population formed largely of Tajikistani (84.3%), with a significant Uzbek minority of 13.8%, and smaller numbers of Kyrgyz, Russians, Turkmens, Tatars, and Arabs. Tajikistan is one of the poorest states of the former Soviet sphere. [custom_adv] It is a largely rural and agricultural country: as of 2015, only 26.8% of the total population lived in urban areas. The country experienced a very turbulent period in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, with the 1992-97 civil war severely damaging its already weak economy. About 90% of the population is Muslim, with most of them practicing Sunni. [custom_adv] Women in Tajikistan, although living in a strongly patriarchal society, do have a very high literacy rate at 99.7% (as of 2015). Although the use of modern contraception is low (27.9% as of 2012), the total fertility rate is only 2.71 children born/woman (2015 estimate). [custom_adv] The Soviet era saw the implementation of policies designed to transform the status of women in Tajik society. During the 1930s, the Soviet authorities launched a campaign for women's equality in Tajikistan, as they did elsewhere in Central Asia. [custom_adv] Eventually major changes resulted from such programs, but initially they provoked intense public opposition. [custom_adv] For example, women who appeared in public without the traditional all-enveloping Muslim veil were ostracized by society or even killed by relatives for supposedly shaming their families by what was considered unchaste behavior. [custom_adv] In the early 1980s, women made up 51 percent of Tajikistan's population and 52 percent of the work force on collective farms, and 38 percent of the industrial labor force, 16 percent of transportation workers, 14 percent of communications workers, and 28 percent of civil servants.