An elderly woman in front of a post office in Voronezh
Photo: Oleg Harseev
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More Future Pensioners Look to State
The number of Russians who think the state should see to their pensions has increased in the last year from 69 to 73 percent, while those who place the responsibility on the employee have dropped from 16 to 11 percent, says a new study by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (Russian abbreviation VTsIOM) on Russians' pension savings. Another 8 percent consider pensions the employer's obligation and 1 percent turn to their union. Older respondents were more inclined to depend on the state (among those 18-24 years of age, 61 percent; among those 60 and older, 87 percent) and less inclined to depend on themselves (17 and 3 percent, respectively).
The data from the VTsIOM survey show that the paternalistic outlook of Russians of pension age is growing. According to the survey, 59 percent of respondents expect a state pension (56 percent in 2007), twice as many as expect to use their own efforts to obtain a pension (28 percent; 35 percent in 2007). Fifty-one percent of the respondents take part in the pension savings system and express the preference for a small but dependable pension. The share of those who were prepared to risk the savings segment of their pensions to receive larger pensions was reduced from 31 to 23 percent. In 2007, there were approximately equal numbers of those who wanted to trust their pension savings to a state fund and those wanted to manage those savings themselves (44 and 40 percent, respectively). That has changed drastically this year. Now there is a strong preference for the state pension fund, 52 percent, compared to 29 percent who would prefer a nongovernmental fund.
The VTsIOM data differ considerably from data of the Pension Fund of Russia. According to the PFR, the Number of Russians who transferred their pension savings from the state managing company, Vneshekonombank, to a nongovernmental pension fund and managing company reached a record high for the period of pension reforms at over 1.5 million people. Thus, on January 1, 2008, nongovernmental pension funds claimed to have made contracts with 1.42 million people in 2007 for mandatory pension insurance. That was 1.8 times higher than in 2006.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 24, 2008
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