At the start of 2024, the Social Fund registry counted 41.075 million retirees. Reports indicate a decline of 699.9 thousand retirees for the year, a 1.7 percent drop, according to funding data reported by RBC.
Compared with 2022, the pace of the decline accelerated threefold, yet the 2024 figure did not surpass the drop recorded in 2021 when the retiree population fell by 970 thousand.
It is noted that the data from the Social Fund do not include pension recipients who fall under the ministries of Defense and Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee, and other law enforcement agencies.
Prior to that, projections had estimated a rise of about 1.13 million retirees to 42.9 million in 2023, driven largely by populations in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. Available data for 2023, however, do not reflect the integration of those new territories.
In 2023 a reform process led to a reduction in allocations for old age pensions within the framework of the pension reform. Retirement by age did not apply uniformly; some individuals remained eligible for early retirement, including mothers with many children. The official retirement ages for 2024 were set at 58 for women born in 1966 and 63 for men born in 1961.
The principal driver behind the 2023 decline in retiree numbers was the shrinking cohort drawing retirement payments from old age insurance, the largest segment. This group decreased by about 885.8 thousand people, ending the year at 33.38 million. In contrast, demand for other payments not tied to service length and retirement points rose. For example, the number of retirees receiving disability-related pensions grew by roughly 91.7 thousand to 2.23 million, the number of recipients of social pensions increased by about 52.9 thousand to 3.41 million, and the count of surviving pensioners rose by around 12.7 thousand to 1.44 million.
During a plenary session of the Russian State Duma in February, the agreement governing the procedure for providing pensions and state insurance for internal affairs personnel from CIS member states was paused.
Earlier, Russia explored measures intended to simplify retirement for parents with many children.