Russians as Old as 60 May Soon Be Counted as ‘Young,’ Possibly Presaging Radical Increase in Retirement Ages

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 10 – Over the last several weeks, senior Russian officials have proposed changing the definition of young people in their country to include people as old as 60, a move that could presage a radical increase in retirement ages, easing Russia’s worker shortage and reducing the amount the government must spend in support of retirees.

    Gennady Onishchenko, vice president of the Russian Academy of Education, favors boosting the upper limit of the young to 40. Healthcare minister Mikhail Murashko wants to boost it to 44; and Veronika Skvortsova, head of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency, seeks to raise it to 60 (nakanune.ru/articles/123373/).

    Their proposals come after the World Health Organization suggested raising the upper limit of the young to 44 and after the Russian government boosted the age from 30 to 35 in 2020 and has been talking about shifting it upwards again to 40 or even higher because people are living longer and are healthier for more years than ever before.  

    While some may dismiss these ideas as ridiculous, some experts are suggesting that the Kremlin is behind them and wants to use an increase in the upper limit of the young as the basis for increasing retirement ages in Russia, thus solving many of its labor shortage problems and reducing the pension burden on the state.

    Among those is Yury Krupnov of the Moscow Institute of Demography, Migration and Regional Development. He suggests that the Russian government might use such an increase to boost retirement ages to as much as 75 or even more in its pursuit of expanding the workforce and limiting the growth in the number of pensioners.

    Given how angry Russians have been about any increase in pension ages in the past, that possibility is likely to spark for anger, dissent and even open protests if the boost in the upper age limit of the young goes through – and if it becomes obvious that Moscow is doing this not to come into line with the WHO but to make Russians work more years before getting pensions.