Pension Reform in Russia: A Challenge of Low Pension Age

This paper examines the dynamics of effective pension age in Russia and in particular the role of special privileged early retirement programs in enlarging the number of pensioners in recent decades. When it is possible to receive a pension and continue to work, people often choose to draw the pension at the earliest possible age and continue to work as before. Binary logistic regression demonstrates that availability of pension benefits and disability status contributed significantly to the drop in employment of people at the ages below the normal pension age. Thus, while early retirement schemes do need to eliminate the right of getting earnings while drawing pensions, it should be possible to keep this option for people at the standard age. Reform of early pension schemes along with gradual increasing of normal pension age of women up to the age of 60 make alternative options of reducing liabilities of the state pension system.