The 7th National Conference “All-Age Society” opened in Moscow today. It is held together with the forum “Russia – Territory of Care” and addresses initiatives which improve living standards of the elder generation in Russia. Speaking at the plenary session, PFR Board Chairman Anton Drozdov told the audience about a decline in the number of able-bodied citizens and the increasing burden of ageing population on the social security system.
Ageing population
— This is the conference “All-Age Society” and I think that our primary objective today is to analyze the ageing population trends that exist in the world, including Russia, and to discuss ways of making life of senior citizens full.
According to the World Bank and Rosstaat, we had 14.2% of citizens older than 65 in 2017, and the proportion will grow to 24.3% by 2050. The percentage currently stands at 24% and will reach 26% in developed countries. We are catching up. Senior citizens will account for 25% of our society in 20-30 years.
Pensions
— Clearly, we plan the continuous increase of pensions at higher-than-inflation rates. I mean the real value of pensions will be growing. No wonder we joined ILO Convention 102, which requires that a pension accounts for at least 40% of the former salary.
We seek to support pensions not only with government insurance programs but also with other systems, which will allow our citizens to increase their pensions.
It is time that the government promoted voluntary pension plans, allowing citizens to increase their savings and pension entitlements. Please note that 7 million citizens have chosen voluntary pension insurance and their contributions amount to 1 trillion rubles. This means that such people are fairly well off, care about their future, and do not rely on government pensions alone.
Employment of senior citizens
— 50+ citizens should have a chance of retraining, so that they could change their occupation and their place on the labor market and acquire a new profession. This is the global trend. It was possible in the past to stay in the same profession throughout one’s lifetime, but now transformations are so serious that people normally change their occupation multiple times.
This year, pre-retirees are retrained within the framework of the National Project “Demography.” Five billion rubles have been assigned for those purposes. WorldSkills has been involved. Clearly, the number of involved citizens is much bigger than the project has been implying. We planned to train 75,000, but the actual number exceeded 100,000. This is a popular program, regions are actively taking part in it, and it is planned next year to engage 50+ people. I mean everyone older than 50 will be able to retrain and stay on the labor market.
Project “Elder Generation”
— Whenever we speak about senior citizens, we mention not just healthcare and education but also socialization. There is a project called “Elder Generation;” this is a party project supervised by United Russia. It’s a volunteer program aimed to develop third-age institutes, which raises computer and legal awareness of citizens and enables people to transform their hobbies into occupation. Gardening and healthy lifestyle lectures are extremely popular, as they allow senior citizens to fulfill themselves. Such projects exist in regions; they are sort of competing with one another and there is information exchange, which is very important from the socialization angle.
Project “My Pension”
— Next year, we are starting the project, “My Pension,” which will provide 45+ citizens with individual information about their pension entitlements. This is what we used to call “happy letters.” The information will be sent every three years so that people stay aware of their prospective. Why 45+? Because these people already have a certain length of employment but still have space for maneuver to boost their pension entitlements.
