University of Helsinki
Welcome to this blog exploring elderly care and pension reforms in Russia! Over the past few years, the Russian government has been implementing major social policy changes, including outsourcing elderly care to private companies, as well as raising the retirement age by 5 years for men and women. These policy decisions have been driven by demographic concerns – Russia’s population is both declining and getting older. In this past pandemic-hit year alone, the country’s population is estimated to have declined by just shy of 1 million people.
The point of this blog is not just to highlight Russia’s responses to these challenges and the excellent research which studies them. Population decline and ageing are common features of many developed countries. The Russian state’s response to these demographic challenges can be informative for other states exploring similar social policy agendas. This blog also serves as an opportunity to investigate the extent to which these policy agendas can enshrine or create various kinds of inequalities, be they rural-urban differences, occupation, social, or economic inequalities. These questions are explored through a series of interviews with Russian social and economic policy experts, as well as a report detailing inequalities related to pension reform.
This blog was conducted under the auspices of Helsinki Inequality Initiative (INEQ).