ИСТИНА

Recent and planned pension reforms in Russia aim at stimulating longer labor lives of the Russian elderly. The current pattern of exit from the Russian labor market is understudied, however, complicating the informed policy reforms in the area of labor market and social security regulation. Moreover, the institutional arrangements in Russia with the combination of no penalty for work beyond pension age, underdeveloped public insurance (pension) system and the lack of risk-free long-term financial instruments for private savings are in contrast to the arrangements in well studied developed countries. I employ survival analysis to study individual exit trajectories as they are seen from the RLMS micro panel for 1995-2015. The results show that statutory pension age, controlling for individual demographic and labor market characteristics, is the key determinant of the gender variation in the exit process: controlling for the statutory pension age, males and females behave very similar around their statutory pension age. The gender asymmetries still significant are the lower hazard rate of married males (as compared to married females) and higher hazard rates of females from households with small children to inactivity. The latter is a reflection of the social role of ‘babushka’ in the Russian context. The analysis reveals a non-linear exit-to-inactivity pattern with respect to skills: those in top (1-3 ISCO) occupation groups and the unskilled (9ths ISCO) have lower hazard rates as compared to the mid-level occupations. This is in contrast to the pattern observed in the US and some other countries where the relationship is linear and more skilled retire later (Rubinstein, Saure, Zoabi 2016). Experience with entrepreneurship prolongs labor market attachment, as does employment at state enterprise/public sector. Lower replacement rate of high earners pushes them to stay attached to the labor market longer.