Number of years worked by Russians since starting to receive pensions reached record high in 2022

In 2022, the average amount of time Russian citizens had continued working after beginning to receive state pensions was 7.47 years, the outlet RBC reported, citing survey data from Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service. That’s the highest the figure has been since the authorities began releasing the data in 2011, when the average was six years. It’s also up from 2020, when Russians had worked 7.02 years since becoming pensioners on average.

At the same time, the number of years worked by recipients of old-age pensions, as opposed to disability or military pensions, decreased significantly between 2020 and 2022. While Russians on old-age pensions had worked an average of 5.82 years since becoming pensioners in 2020, by the end of 2022, the average was just 2.3 years.

Recipients of early pensions (certain segments of the population are eligible for early retirement regardless of disability or military status), meanwhile, had worked an average of 7.5 years since starting to receive benefits in 2022, while recipients of disability benefits had worked 11.8 years on average.

17.8 percent of the pensioners surveyed by the Federal Statistics Service reported having worked after beginning to receive pensions.

Alexander Safonov, a professor at the Russian Government’s Financial University, told RBC that the increase in post-pension work years for Russians could be linked to the fact that the number of people receiving benefits before reaching the national pension age has risen in recent years.

In 2018, the Russian government passed a law to gradually raise the country’s retirement age over a five-year period from 60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 60 for women. In 2022, the pension age was 61.5 for men and 56.5 for women.