Post-Soviet pension systems, retirement, and elderly poverty: Findings from the Kyrgyz Republic

Using data from household surveys of the Kyrgyz Republic, we explore determinants of pension receipt and wage employment as well as poverty and extreme poverty status. Data are taken from surveys in late 1993 (a period of extreme economic dislocation) and late 1996 (a time of nascent recovery). While the surveys are not perfectly comparable, their contrast also enables us to make some tentative conclusions about recovery in the post-Soviet era. The first section briefly discusses patterns of the Kyrgyz economy and the public pension system. We then turn to a description of the data in Section 2, and provide an overview of pensioner characteristics. Section 3 presents multivariate models of pension receipt and wage employment. The determinants of poverty status in 1993 and 1996 are contrasted in Section 4, while Section 5 offers concluding remarks about the implications of our research for pension policy.

Duke Scholars

Author Charles Maxwell Becker Economics