| According to a recent research paper (Kosmarskaya, 9/4/04)
only 5% of
Russians outside the dominant power industries contribute to a private
pension scheme leaving the rest reliant on the state pension to see them
through old age - a frightening prospect in a country with a falling birth
rate and an ageing population and, at the same time, with a lack of the
services provided in other ageing countries such as those in Western Europe
What is it like to be old in Moscow? Being a thirty-five year old, I
avoided the question of pensions and putting money aside when I was
younger, but now find myself thinking more and more about it. Would a
Russian in my place trust to the government to provide for them or would
he
(she) face up to a probable fact that we all have to provide for ourselves
in this world? According to a recent research paper only 5% of Russians
outside the dominant power industries contribute to a private pension
scheme leaving the rest reliant on the state pension to see them through
old age - a frightening prospect in a country with a falling birth rate
and
an ageing population and, at the same time, with a lack of the services
provided in other ageing countries such as those in Western Europe. As
one
Muscovite recently remarked to me, he is relying on savings and the
interest he earns to keep him afloat in his approaching retirement. Luckily
for him both he and his wife are earning about $2000 a month each, so
they
can afford to save. However, it is still questionable as to whether they
will be able to afford the same standard of living once they are purely
reliant on the savings. They rely on the fact that housing costs and taxes
have not significantly increased and they hope will not; but alas, they
may
do so, catching other comfortable earners in an unwelcome situation.
For most Muscovites though the future is bleaker. People are worrying
in
England about their standard of living after retirement and there the
system is much more generous although costs (not all) are much higher.
In
this tax year Britain pays L79.60 weekly to a single person on retirement
who has contributed fully to the state scheme through what is called
National Insurance Contributions, although the figure is less if they
haven't contributed fully (which could be from having spent time out of
the
country, not working so they can bring up the children, or in some cases
as
a lot of British women have recently discovered, only paying a reduced
contribution because they were married women and working). Here, on
average, a pensioner receives between R3000 to R4500 a month. There are
roughly R50 to one pound sterling so I'll leave you to work out the
difference between the two. Along with high housing and food costs I doubt
that many people are putting money away and certainly not in bank accounts.
So I predict there are going to be a lot more pensioners collecting bottles
in the metro or begging for change in the street, and I am not sure that
Russian society has faced up to this. It is in the light of this
unwholesome truth that the Duma is steamrolling their bill on fixed-rate
cash payments to pensioners and other groups.
Figures from re-cep.ru and Age Concern
See also:
Social
Policies
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