The Gerontologist
cite as: Gerontologist, 2016, Vol. 56, No. 5, 795–799
doi:10.1093/geront/gnw007
Advance Access publication
February 16, 2016
International Spotlight
Aging in Russia
Olga Strizhitskaya, PhD
Department of Psychology, Saint Petersburg State University, Russia.
Address correspondence to Olga Strizhitskaya, PhD, Department of Psychology, Saint Petersburg State University, nab. Makarova, 6, Saint
Petersburg 199034, Russia. E-mail: [email protected]
Received June 23, 2015; Accepted November 3, 2015
Decision Editor: Rachel Pruchno, PhD
Abstract
Russia has always been at an intersection of Western and Eastern cultures, with its dozens of ethnic groups and different
religions. The federal structure of the country also encompasses a variety of differences in socioeconomic status across its
regions. This diversity yields complexity in aging research; aging people in Russia differ in terms of nationality, religion,
political beliefs, social and economic status, access to health care, income, living conditions, etc. Thus, it is difficult to
control for all these factors or to draw a picture of an “average” Russian older adult. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of
research on aging in Russia, mainly focusing on biomedical and social aspects of aging. Most such research is based in the
Central and Western regions, whereas the Siberian and Far East regions are underrepresented. There is also a lack of secondary databases and representative nationwide studies. Social policy and legislation address the needs of older adults by providing social services, support, and protection. The retirement system in Russia enables adults to retire at relatively young
ages—55 and 60 years for women and men, respectively—but also to maintain the option of continuing their professional
career or re-establishing a career after a “vocation” period. Though in recent years the government has faced a range of
political issues, affecting the country’s economy in general, budget funds for support of aging people have been maintained.
Keywords: Russia, Aging, Demography, Retirement
Being one of the largest territories in the world, the Russian
Federation unites many nationalities, cultures, and religions, each of which impacts the country’s overall picture
of aging (Dobrokhleb, 2010; Safarova, Kosolapenko, &
Atutionov, 2005). In this article, we address the complexity of the specifics of aging and aging research in Russia.
Russia has always been a home to a mixture of Western
and Eastern values, and these values affect attitudes toward
aging. Traditional Western values, such as freedom and
independence, may foster well-being in terms of independence from children and other relatives, as well as financial
and material independence; in contrast, Eastern values tell
us it would be inappropriate to leave parents and grandparents on their own. In Southern Republics, having an older
person in your family commands respect and honor from
society; an older person is the head of the family and is
treated well by his relatives. On the other hand, Central
and Western regions of the country are more influenced by
European values, goals, and stereotypes, including negative
ones (Shagidaeva, 2015). In these regions, fears about the
aging process and the desire to avoid aging issues among
youth and adults are much stronger, and older adults fear
becoming a burden for their families. Because Russia has
been a multinational country since its beginning, there
has always been intercultural exchange: Western regions
incorporated Eastern values (to some extent) and vice
versa. Thus, it is likely that most older adults in Russia are
receptive to a mixture of Western and Eastern values that
combine a desire for independence and involvement at the
same time.
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Another perspective that affects aging in Russia is historical and political context. For example, communism
(and the USSR) has shaped the lives of many Russian people who are now older adults. This influence was diverse,
however, and could have affected a variety of outcomes
during the recent period of transition. Some people were
greatly influenced and stigmatized by the communist system, whereas the lives of those with power and financial
resources were not limited at all. Yet both these groups
(and in reality there may be many more) may cope with
transition and reach retirement age with both negative and
positive outcomes. In addition, various factors that could
impact their adaptation to the fall of the USSR and transition to a new economic and political system must also
be considered. To test any of these hypotheses, a complex
study of a representative sample is needed.
women who always wanted to devote themselves to their
homes and families, but could not afford to do so and had
to work in their younger years to ease their financial burdens. On the other hand, there can be disadvantages for
older workers when employers who are more interested in
young employees have an officially sanctioned reason to
fire those who reach retirement age. According to RosStat
data, 12.3% of adults aged 55–59 years, 6.7% of adults
aged 60–64 years, and 3.2% of adults aged 65 and older
continue their careers. Nevertheless, as they approach formal retirement age, people start to consider themselves
“somewhat” aging. Because they benefit from social policies for older adults, they are already seen as older adults or
aging people by society and the government. Thus, in most
Russian research samples, women aged 55 and older and
men aged 60 and older are considered to be aging people.
Demography of Aging
Elderly Poverty
The very notion of an aging person in Russia is different
from that of an aging person in Western countries. Western
researchers usually think of older adults as those who are
aged 65 and older, based on a retirement age of about
65 years.
The problem of poverty in Russia in general and elderly
poverty in particular is complicated. According to sociologists and economists, the rate in the entire population may
vary between 18% and 50%. These differences may be
due to a variety of factors. First, regions differ in incomes
and expenses. Someone living in Moscow may have higher
income than someone living in a Siberian city, but expenses
in Moscow will be also higher and thus the economic status
of the Muscovite could be lower. Second, differences can
be found between people living in the cities and in the villages. Though those living in the villages usually have lower
income, products from their own farms provide them with
substantial resources. The general trend from 1992 to 2013
was a decrease in poverty rates due to national economic
growth. There are no recent data available about the effects
of crisis of 2014–2015, however.
Data about poverty rates among aging people in Russia
are also contradictory. In publications from 1992 to 2006
(Poverty in Russia, 2014), we can see disappointingly high
levels of poverty; some authors even claim that up to 70%
of aging couples can be considered as poor. On the other
hand, the director of the institute for social and economic
studies of the population of the Russian Science Academy,
A. Shevyakov, reported that aging people are not the poorest category in the Russian society (RIA News, 2010). He
proposed that poverty has two components or dimensions:
direct income and access to health and social services. From
this perspective, on the first dimension, the poorest categories are children and adults with low salaries, and on the
second dimension, aging people are the poorest category.
One question that arises with regard to the retirement
age in Russia is whether it is reasonable or if the retirement
system should be revamped. This question cannot be easily
answered, and there are often public discussions about it in
the Russian society. In our opinion, the retirement system
needs to be more flexible; there are people at age 50 who
are not capable of carrying out their professional functions
Retirement
Retirement in the Russian Federation is a unique phenomenon. Based on the World Health Organization (WHO)
classification, formal retirement age in 2015 was 55 years
for women and 60 years for men. Formal retirement means
that if a person who reaches the appropriate age wants
to retire, he/she can do so, although it is not mandatory.
A person can continue his/her career after reaching the
retirement age, while also acquiring the social status of a
retiree and receiving a retirement allowance from the government. The system of retirement allowances or pensions
has two subsystems: a system for calculating retirement
pensions for those who have already retired or will do so
soon (born in 1966 or earlier) and a system for those who
can still plan for their retirement savings (Eich, Soto, &
Gust, 2012). For those already retired, the pension amount
depends on a variety of factors, including age (there is a
small increase in pension after age 80 years), work experience, special conditions (e.g., extra pension payments for
participants in the Great Patriotic War [1941–1945] and
individuals born during those years), region (most regions
provide their own extra payments to increase the income
of older adults), and special health conditions. Taking all
these factors into account, pension amounts can range
from hardly enough to live on to that comparable with the
salary of a middle-class specialist.
Retirement legislation confers both advantages and disadvantages on retirees. On one hand, a person can retire
at comparatively young age if he/she wishes and/or has
financial resources to do so. This might be the case for
The Gerontologist, 2016, Vol. 56, No. 5
effectively, whereas others could be productive until the age
80 or older. The retirement system, in our opinion, should
provide support for both types of people.
Demographic Profile
In 2014, there were 33,788,600 adults over the retirement age, constituting 23.5% of the national population
(143,666,900), according to the Russian Federation Federal
State Statistics Service (RosStat, 2015). If we look more
closely at these statistics, we find that the proportion of people aged 65 and older would be just 13%, with a greater
proportion of those aged 70 and older. Comparing the percentage of the population over retirement age in Russia and
other countries (e.g., Europe or the United States), we need
to remember that the aging population in Russia includes
younger people than in other countries and to specify sample
ages. Examination of the government’s policy on aging, however, would still focus on the number of those who are officially retired according to Russia’s legal retirement age. The
proportion of the “retirement age” population is expected
to grow to 28.5% by 2030, with men and women proportions of 20.4% and 35.8%, respectively. Due to the “young”
retirement age in the Russian Federation, these proportions
are higher than those in Europe; still, the older adult population aged 65 and older in 2015 is estimated to be 19.6% of
the population, with 15.1% and 23.6% of men and women,
respectively. The distribution of the aging population among
the regions also demonstrates wide variation, with the proportion ranging from 8.7% to 29.1%, which makes it difficult to compare demographic data from different regions.
This can be partly explained by immigration processes,
though a more in-depth analysis is still needed.
Life expectancy is another challenge affecting aging
research in Russia. In 2014, life expectancy was 79 years
for women and 64 years for men. Although the general pattern—a huge difference in life expectancy between men and
women—remains, from a longer perspective, it increased
from 74 years for women and 59 years for men in 2010,
just 4 years earlier. This difference causes another research
problem—a gender issue. Shorter life expectancy for men
leads to unequal numbers of men and women in the elderly
population and fewer men available for research in general;
thus, male and female sample sizes may not be comparable. As a result, the majority of data collected on aging in
Russia is based on samples of women, especially when it
comes to ages 85 and older.
Research in Aging
Research on aging in Russia began in the mid-1960s and has
developed in two global directions: biomedical aspects of
aging (I.V. Davydovskii, V.V. Frolkis, etc.) and social gerontology (M.D. Alexandrova). Since the beginning of the 20th
century, there has been active development of the biological, medical, and pharmaceutical aspects of gerontological
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research (Anisimov, Khavinson, & Mikhailova, 2011).
World-class research in this area includes studies of the role
of genes in aging and age-related pathology (Baranov &
Baranova, 2007; Moskalev, 2008), novel design for molecular epidemiologic studies introduced by Imyanitov (2009),
and the relationship between cancer and aging (Anisimov,
2005, 2007, 2009).
Starting in the 1960s, research in social gerontology focused on the problems of professional functioning
of aging people, their adaptation to retirement, and their
capacity in terms of neurological and personality functioning (Alexandrova, 1974, 2014a, 2014b). A lot of researchers currently study psychological resources and potential,
particularly subjective ones. As stated by M.D. Alexandrova
and acknowledged by many other scientists, all the aging
processes show great variability that makes them hard to
study and interpret. Considering the significant role of subjective factors, personality activity, and resources in aging,
the concept of self-determination (Deci & Vansteenkiste,
2004) has been applied to aging in Russia (and particularly
to Saint Petersburg as one of the most “aging” regions).
A study on self-determination in aging (Strizhitskaya,
2013; Strizhitskaya & Davedyuk, 2014) showed that the
theory’s most age-sensitive component is positive social
relationships, which plays an important role in both formally and actually retired older adults. Moreover, the study
found that all the components of self-determination theory
have positive effects on life satisfaction and psychological
well-being in aging.
The “Crystal” study, also conducted in Saint Petersburg
(Gurina, Frolova, & Degryse, 2011), showed that a comparatively high proportion of older adults suffered from
mild or moderate cognitive impairment (17% and 25% for
men and women aged 65–74 years, respectively, and 45.2%
and 47.2% for men and women aged 75 and older, respectively). Interestingly, Karpenko, Kachalova, Budilova, and
Teriokhin (2009) propose a novel hypothesis on the role of
the age-related changes in cognitive functioning: Declines
in neural correlations related to age can improve the process of situation processing in general.
One of the most important issues in Russian gerontological research is the lack of complex multidisciplinary
studies that would unite biomedical studies and social and
psychological research. Often their paradigms are seen as
contradictory, so much more collaboration is needed to
devise a complex research approach to aging in Russia.
Another challenge is that not all the domains of aging are
covered in current research in Russia. This trend appears
both in internal science studies (e.g., a dearth of research on
emotional processes of healthy older adults in psychology)
and multidisciplinary research.
Data About Aging
As in other developing countries, Russia lacks national representative studies on aging. However, secondary datasets,
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available to researchers interested in the study of aging,
include the WHO’s Study on Global AGEing and Adult
Health (SAGE) in six SAGE countries: China, Ghana,
India, Mexico, Russia, and South Africa (WHO, 2015). For
the Russian Federation, a Wave 0 (2002–2004) sample of
4,422 people were surveyed, of whom 50.4% were aged
50 and older (2,308 participants). At Wave 1 (2007–2010),
data on 4,355 participants were collected, and Wave 2
started in 2014. The survey includes household and individual questionnaires that provide data about a variety of
health-related issues.
Policy Issues
In Russia, as in many other countries, aging issues are considered to be a policy priority. The increase in the aging
population leads to the need for more social protection of
older adults, by way of government policies on social services (including health services) and social support.
Health care services comprise a large part of social services in Russia. Health care is provided for those of all
ages, including older adults, through the Health Ministry
(Health Care in Russia, 2006). Every person has a medical insurance policy, regardless of age and/or employment,
which covers a wide range of medical services. Health care
improvement continues to be one of the priorities of the
current government, and there is concern about how health
care quality differs tremendously depending on the region.
Central regions, especially Moscow and Saint Petersburg,
have more high-quality specialized clinics with modern
equipment and world-class doctors, whereas in sparsely
populated distant and rural regions, the closest hospital or
policlinic may be very far away. In fact, in some distant villages, people may not even know where the closest health
care facility is. It is important to note that these health care
system problems affect not only older adults but the entire
population.
In addition to health care, social services for aging people
in Russia include a variety of options. There are educational
centers, so called “third age schools,” where aging people can
learn different subjects and skills. Some of these are purely
applied, such as computer or language courses, whereas
others provide opportunities for personality and creativity development. For example, the “Third Age School” in
Saint Petersburg (Third Age School, 2015) aims to go
beyond developing specific skills in aging people, to helping improve their social position and activity. For those who
need social or medical assistance, there are “social houses”
and “homes for elderly.” “Social houses” provide temporary
care for aging people and are supported by the government.
Aging people live in their own apartments for a limited time
(usually several weeks) supported by doctors, nurses, social
workers, and psychologists. “Homes for elderly” are a permanent residence, staffed by social workers, doctors and
nurses, where residents receive everything they need for their
health conditions. There are both public and private “homes
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for elderly.” Due to traditional and quite conservative values
in Russia, “homes for elderly” are associated with a variety
of negative stereotypes, and most people, both young and
old, are afraid of such institutions. Unfortunately, with an
increasingly aging population, the availability of some services can be limited or require a waiting period.
Social support includes help of a material nature, both
monetary and goods, and of a non-material nature, such
as special services and benefits (e.g., discounts for certain
services). There is also a list of free medications that people can receive in certain pharmacies, which has provoked
some public discussion about the medications that are
included in the list, and the availability and provision of
these medications in the pharmacies.
The theoretical model of Russia’s social policy (as stated
in official documents) has great potential for improving
older adults’ lives, but the realization of this policy, especially in regions far from the “capitals” (Moscow and Saint
Petersburg) needs to be improved.
Emerging Issues and Conclusions
The increase in Russia’s aging population demands new
approaches to understanding and addressing aging issues.
Among the areas that need further research are the cognitive sphere, including cognitive reserve, indicators of
cognitive impairment, and protective factors, such as education, physical activity, and healthy lifestyle. Application of
Western research findings to Russian samples is complicated
by the country’s diversity and the variety of factors influencing the aging process. To address these issues, factors such
as region, employment, education, gender, religious beliefs,
and cultural values have to be taken into account.
Demographic changes, such as increasing life expectancy,
birthrates, and number of generations living concurrently, are
leading to growing demands for intergenerational research.
Presently, with most intergenerational research focused on
parent–child relationships or grandparent/grandchild communication, it seems necessary to explore new models that
consider at least three generations at a time.
Methodological issues are most challenging in the field
of social sciences. Although biological and medical studies
are somewhat comparable with those in the West in terms
of methods, social sciences use a set of originally Russiandeveloped methods and questionnaires or translated versions of Western questionnaires. The methodological
problem with the translated versions is that sometimes during adaptation and validation, investigators do not follow
all the procedures accurately or do not adequately explain
the procedures they used in their publications. Russiandeveloped methods also often lack clear validation data
in publications and may not offer alternative variants in
Western studies, thus making international comparison and
discussion difficult for some concepts.
Finally, one of the most complicated challenges in
Russian research in aging is the motivation of older adults.
The Gerontologist, 2016, Vol. 56, No. 5
Most research being conducted and published is based on
studies of those who are somewhat socially active—who
want to learn something new, to know something about
themselves, to improve their health; but there are still a
large number of older adults who don’t want to participate
in any kind of research and about whom science knows
very little. It is critical to encourage those people to participate in research and initiate social and self-directed activity.
Given Russia’s geographic and demographic diversity, historical and political context, and unique retirement system, there is great potential for further research
about the Russian aging population. It offers abundant
opportunities to study the effects on aging of a variety
of cultural, social, psychological, spiritual, and biological
factors.
Funding
The article is a part of a research project funded by Grant Council of
President of Russian Federation (MK-3345.2015.6).
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