by Dmitriy Belyanin
Introduction
Around the world in recent decades, decreasing birth rates and
increasing life expectancy have aged the population, raising the number of
retirees that each worker must support.
To reduce the burden on the budget and to help develop the capital
market, countries often privatize their pension systems as well as establish
accumulated pension funds and increase the retirement age (particularly for
women). In some countries, these systems
could not support retirees adequately, so they were re-nationalized.
As a transition economy with a history of central planning, Kazakhstan
has pioneered financial reforms. Having
suffered tax and wage arrears, the country was the first in the Commonwealth of
Independent States to move from pay-as-you-go (in which today’s workers pay for
today’s pensions) to a system with a fully funded component (retirees finance
their pensions out of their own savings).
While the new system overcame arrears and advanced the capital market,
many of the self-employed wouldn’t participate.
In the global financial crisis, yields of pension funds could not keep
up with inflation. So, in 2013, the
private pension funds in Kazakhstan were merged into a single Unified
Accumulated Pension Fund, and the retirement age for women is to rise gradually
to the counterpart for men. Later,
notional accounts were introduced. Employers, registered as legal entities,
must contribute to future pensions of their employees.
In other CIS countries, including members of the Eurasian Economic
Union, pension systems tend to remain state-owned. There are plans to coordinate the pension
systems of nations in the Union. This would enable retirees from any member
state to receive their pensions in any other member.
The Soviet pension system
The Soviets pursued a pay-as-you-go system. The retirement age was 55 for women and 60
for men; the corresponding requirements of work experience were 20 and 25
years. Those who worked under harsh
conditions, and social workers (doctors, teachers, etc.), could retire earlier
and at a lower minimum of work experience.
The pay received over one’s lifetime did not matter. Maxima and minima restricted pensions, which
equalized benefits across retirees.
Enterprises partly financed pensions by paying insurance premiums to
the government; the rest of the money came from other contributions to the
budget. At his discretion, the worker could apply for benefits when he
satisfied conditions based on either the average salary for the last year or on
any five straight years in the last decade.
There was no state pension fund.
When the transition to a market economy began in 1990, the Union of the
Soviet Socialist Republics set up a pension fund, but it ceased to exist in
1991, reports Kolesov of ypensioner.ru.
Pensions were regarded not as a reward for work but as alimony owed to
retirees. During the 1980s, state
payments for pensions rose by 2 billion Soviet rubles per year, nearly doubling
over the decade.
Since the system rewarded harsh work, heads of enterprises had no
incentive to improve working conditions. Medical checkups became formalities.
Indeed, a third of profession-related diseases in 1991 were diagnosed not
during checkups but during patient visits to clinics and hospitals, according
to Akbulatov, as reported in Molodoi
Ucheniy (“Young Scholar”), a
scholarly journal.
Though the Soviet pension system was inefficient, it was consistent with
the traditional values of society, notably the idea that younger generations
should financially support the older generation, especially women, who in turn
take care of grandchildren. This notion was common in the Fifties, Sixties and
Seventies, given the equalization of incomes and the baby boom in the Soviet
Union at that time.
Kazakhstan
The implosion of the Soviet system and the depression of the 1990s decreased
tax revenues. Losses and bankruptcies of
enterprises, unemployment, wage and tax arrears led to a budget deficit. The
government of Kazakhstan had trouble financing pensions. By mid-1996, there were 2.8 million
recipients and 5 million contributors, leading to arrears of 5 months on
pension payments on average. About 1.8
workers were paying for each pensioner, which was insufficient. Less than half of potential contributions
were collected for paying pensions.
Contribution arrears from enterprises increased rapidly to 40 billion
tenge on January 1, 1996 -- 26 billion tenge higher than on January 1,
1995. Only 5 million people, out of 7.8
million members of the workforce, paid taxes.
Since wages were underreported, only about 45-52% of potential revenues
were collected.
To overcome these problems, Kazakhstan in 1998 established a pension
system that included a fully funded component, using Chile as the
benchmark. Under the new system, pension
contributions went into individual accounts run by private pension funds, which
would invest them in securities. Employers’ contribution rate was cut from
25.5% to 15%, stated Andrews on the World Bank website.
The retirement age rose to 63 for men -- and to 58 for women – who had
at least 35 years of work. People living
in environmentally damaged areas or exposed to radiation could retire at 55. So could rural women who had at least five
children older than eight.
Under the new system, each retiree received a basic pension, based on
the initial pay-as-you-go scheme, plus the accumulated fully funded component.
By default, a person’s pension contributions would transfer to the newly formed
State Accumulated Pension Fund, but she could also choose any private pension
fund. Contributors could switch funds
freely once or twice a year. Initially, 85% of contributors participated in the
state managed fund, compared to 76% in January 1999, 45% in June 2000, and 42%
in October 2000. By the end of 2000, the
share of the State Accumulated Pension Fund fell to 39%, reports Lim.
Tax and wage arrears were common in transition economies. However,
Kazakhstan was the first country in the CIS to take such a radical approach in
overcoming its effects. Why? One reason was to free up money to build
Astana, Kazakhstan’s new capital.
Another was to enable the government to portray itself as a financial
pioneer and thus appeal to international financial organizations and foreign
investors. Being the second largest country in the CIS, and having a similar
resource base and economic structure, Kazakhstan emerged as a rival of Russia,
which was strongly pro-market and pro-western at that time. The money saved by pension reform may have
helped Kazakhstan avoid default as a consequence of the 1998 ruble crisis.
The new pension system stimulated capital markets. By 2012, before the second pension reform,
pension assets totaled $19 billion. Pension funds dominated the corporate bond
market, holding $4 billion in bonds. But the pension system excluded many of
the self-employed, and yields on its funds remained low. About half of the pension portfolio, or $9.6
billion, consisted of Kazakhstan’s government securities with yields below
inflation rates. Bank deposits -- and Kazakhstani corporate bonds with yields
often barely above inflation -- also had low shares of the portfolio (21% for
Kazakh corporate bonds and 9% for deposits).
The share of other instruments amounted to 20%, reports Farkhad Okhonov,
of Halyk Finance.
The global financial crisis of 2008 cut returns on pension
savings. The weighted average return on
pension assets for all funds dove from 47.73% for 2001-2006 to 30.19% for
2003-2008, said financial regulators.
Beginning in 2012, a pension contributor could legally choose one of
three strategies: Aggressive, moderate or conservative. And a contributor could keep several pension
accounts by clearing through the State Center for Pension Payments. A 10% limit on investing pension assets in
financial instruments of one issuer was introduced, as well as restrictions on
transactions with affiliates.
These measures didn’t improve pension fund performance. In May 2012, the World Bank recommended
merging all Kazakh pension fund assets, totaling $19 billion, into one pension
fund to be managed by a foreign company.
They argued that this fund would outperform Kazakh private pension
funds, which could not beat the inflation rate.
Before October 2012, pension funds were not allowed to invest more than
half of their funds in higher-return instruments. This restriction was lifted,
but investment in high-yield instruments remains anemic. So, on January 23, President Nursultan
Nazarbayev said he would transfer all assets into one investment fund,
controlled by the National Bank of Kazakhstan, which would manage them more
effectively than the private pension funds had, reports Madybayev, of Halyk Finance.
Also, the government is raising the retirement age for women from 58 to
63 years, which is already the age for men.
The system established in 2013 imitated Argentina and Hungary. However, according to Tamara Duisenova, then
Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Protection, Kazakhstan’s system differed by
preserving individual accounts, owned by the contributor. And asset managers would keep competing.
In July 2013, the finance ministry took from the National Bank the
shares of the State Accumulated Pension Fund and renamed it the Unified
Accumulated Pension Fund (UAPF), to be managed by the National Bank. Starting with Respublica, all pension funds
transferred to UAPF by 2014, which was supposed to enable saving a lot of money
on compensation of pension fund owners and managers, but actually led to
losses. This was also part of a long-run
increase in the Bank’s power. Since the 2011 transfer of the functions of the
Agency of Financial Supervision to the new Committee for the Control
and Supervision of the Financial Market and Financial Organizations, the Bank has become the sole financial regulator in Kazakhstan.
Nationalizing the pension system jibed with the public’s growing
discontent with hardline market policies and with criticism by economists. On the other hand, increasing the retirement
age showed that future retirees should take care of their own pensions, a
market principle. Also, raising the
retirement age was consistent with the growing participation of women in the
workforce and with the increasing life expectancy of women, who outlive men in
most countries.
The 2013 reform was criticized by Aidar Alibayev, then Chair of the
Association of Pension Funds. He said
the reform turned complex and high-tech businesses into a monopoly and violated
the right of contributors to select their own pension funds.
But Kairat Kelimbetov, then Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan,
countered that taxpayers should not have to pay for the carelessness of pension
fund managers via a government guarantee of profit. Moral hazard results when
financial managers believe that the government will bail them out of their
costly mistakes.
As of 2014, the UAPF’s losses amounted to 100 billion KZT, including
the assets of 30 defaulted companies amounting to 95 billion KZT. This results from nontransparent purchases of
shares for the portfolio, which in turn result from poor regulation, said
Alibayev in Kazinform. While pension asset
problems may have played a role in the 2013 dismissal of National Bank Chairman
Grigoriy Marchenko, it was also important for him to avoid initiating a second
devaluation in five years. The February
2014 devaluation, plus the decision in August 2015 to float the tenge, must
have induced authorities to seek new measures to compensate the pension system
and future and current retirees for inflation and exchange rate effects.
A 2014 proposal would introduce notional accounts. Under the Notional Defined Contribution
Benefit System, employers would pay 5% contributions to one’s pension accounts,
in addition to the basic pension and the 10% contributions deducted from one’s
salary. But some people worry that this
measure may drive bosses and workers to the shadow economy. Also, the basic pension would no longer be
fixed and would depend upon experience; those who work more would receive more
in benefits, reports Tengri News.
This year, UAPF assets are to transfer from the National Bank to
domestic and foreign management companies, in order to increase yield, reports
Khabar.kz. But in reality, the assets
transferred from the Bank to the Council on Management of the National Fund, in
order to finance banks and other companies.
This creates a conflict of interest: The National Fund's goal is to keep
its assets as safe as possible, which implies keeping them in low-yield
instruments, while nominal yield on UAPF assets must exceed inflation. Banks would demand low interest rates before
borrowing from the Council; but retirees need high yields. The difference would have to be
subsidized. An annual interest rate of
about 10% would require 200 billion tenge.
The government would like to buy bonds at yields below the market
rate. Only a transfer of the UAPF to the
private sector would solve this problem.
Privatization would restore the profit incentive, encouraging investment
in higher-yielding instruments, which would be separate from the goal of
providing cheap funds to firms. Such is
the view of Murat Temirkhanov, of Halyk Finance.
Providing social benefits, including pensions, to the informally
employed and self-employed is a challenge, because of their aversion to risk
and their distrust of government. They
want all their earnings available for current consumption. Tying pensions to official work experience
may encourage people to pay taxes and contribute appropriate amounts. However, by increasing the supply of workers
seeking jobs in larger firms, where one will certainly be employed officially,
the measure may cut salaries in gross and net terms. The opposite will be true
for smaller firms and the informal sector.
Over time, the share of the latter will decline due to increased labor
costs, leading to higher concentration in some industries.
Russia
In 2002, Russia replaced pay-as-you-go with a defined contribution
system. Prior to this, most employers
contributed 28% of payroll to pensions -- except for agricultural enterprises,
which contributed 20.6%, and the disabled, who were exempt. For men, the normal retirement age was 60
years with at least 25 years of official work experience; for women, it was 55
years with at least 20 years of experience.
Employees usually had to pay only 1% of their earnings, while the
self-employed and farmers paid 20.6%.
Retirees earned 55% of their wage base (gross average earnings in the
two years prior to retirement or any continuous five-year period), plus 1% of
their earning, for each year of work, in excess of the legal minimum required
for a pension. This amount was subject
to a maximum of either 75% of the wage base, or thrice the minimum pension,
whichever was lower, reports Lim.
In the 1990s, despite a pro-market government, Russia was slow to
reform pensions. Market reforms had been
unpopular since they seemed to create rampant unemployment, inflation and tax
evasion. And as the old core of the
USSR, Russians had stronger pro-Soviet attitudes than other ex-Soviet nations,
as shown by the popularity of the Communist Party in the Russian Federation. In
Kazakhstan, the leftist opposition has been much less influential and
organized, so its government could carry out unpopular reforms.
The 1998 financial crisis in Russia delayed pension reform and led to
stopgap measures. The purchasing power
of pensions fell from 120% of the subsistence minimum to 60-70%. So the
government raised the benefits.
Average retirement pensions were nearly a third of the average wage in
Russia in 2001, when they finally reached the subsistence minimum. The crisis had showed that financial markets
lacked reliable instruments for investment.
Since pension costs in Russia were less than 6% of GDP, well below the
amount in Europe, it was argued that Russia should not decrease pension
payments. On the other hand, maintaining
pensions at the promised level of 55-75% of earnings, while retaining the
pay-as-you-go system, would require increasing contributions to 60-65% of
earnings. Employees might flee to the shadow economy.
The post-transition pension system consists of: The basic part, a
flat-rate amount for sustenance; the insured part, which depends on the
premiums paid throughout one’s life, adjusted for inflation and for the
expected number of months of pension payments; and the funded part, which is
invested, and, starting in 2004, can be transferred at one’s discretion to a
private fund. The retirement age was not
increased. The expected payment period
of old-age pensions was set at 19 years (228 months); but in practice, before
2013, lower values were used to calculate pensions, which made them higher,
according to Afanasiev, former Deputy Director of the Ministry of Labor and
Social Development in Russia.
In 2013-2014, the Kremlin froze the accumulated part of the pension
fund, permitting its use only for financing current payments. The Russian labor ministry thought this
measure necessary due to the declining ratio of workers to retiree. Previously, the 22% of the worker’s salary
that financed the Pension Fund was split: 16% for the insurance segment of the
pension and current pensions; 6% for accumulated funds. When the measure was introduced, the 6% could
no longer be invested. So 550 billion
rubles of contributions for 2013, and 700 billion rubles for 2014, did not
reach non-state pension funds, which induced banks to increase interest rates. Thus
minimum interest rates for individuals increased from 8% in 2013 to 10% in
2014, reports Maria Karnaukh, of Russia Beyond the Headlines. The pension assets remained frozen for 2015
and 2016. For 2016, Dmitry Medvedev,
Prime Minister of Russia, initially proposed to unfreeze pension assets, but they
remained frozen. Out of 342 billion rubles saved by freezing pension assets in
2016, an anti-crisis fund was formed.
Another 400 billion rubles may be saved by transferring assets in 2017,
report Margarita Papchenkova and Alexandra Prokopenko, of Vedomosti newspaper.
Recession in Russia spurred talks about the need to increase women’s
retirement age in order to free funds for industrialization. The country’s ideological shift towards traditionalism
now makes this unification less likely, since traditionalists emphasize gender
differences. It is more probable that
the government will try to save on pensions by not indexing them to inflation
or by raising retirement age for both genders, preserving the gender gap. In
December 2015, Olga Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, said retirement
age would not rise until 2018.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection recently proposed to
abolish the mandatory accumulated portion, on the grounds that interest rates
cannot keep up with inflation and are well below the rate at which the
insurance component has been growing, report Anastassiya Bashkatova and Mikhail
Sergeyev, of the Nezavisimaya (Independent) newspaper. On the other
hand, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development, and the
Central Bank oppose the abolition of the mandatory accumulated portion.
According to Vladimir Chistukhin, Deputy Chair of the Central Bank, about 30%
of accumulated pension fund assets have been invested in the real sector,
including 10% for infrastructure projects.
Also, accumulated pension funds have become more transparent over time,
and 44 million rubles have been transferred to the system of guaranteeing
deposits, reports RBC.ru.
Belarus
Belarus still operates under the pension system inherited from the
Soviet Union, with small amendments. The
retirement age has been preserved at 55 for women and 60 for men. If the current system continues, the budget
deficit of the Fund of Social Protection of the Population of Belarus may
exceed 1.8% of GDP in 2020, according to Bornukova, Lisenkova and Luzgina. Minor adjustments exist. Starting from January 1, 2015, mandatory work
experience has risen from 10 to 15 years.
For 2015, the pension is based on actual earnings for the last 21 years;
and starting from 2016, the 21-year period will increase annually by one year
until it reaches one’s actual work experience, reports BELTA.
Preservation of pension and welfare benefits has politically helped
Belarus’ regime, which the West labels as repressive. Belarus benefits from
Russian subsidies of oil and gas prices, which amount to 15% of Belarusian GDP
annually. Belarus among the world’s top 10
exporters of petroleum products. Since
2007, Russia has tried to reduce its support of Belarus, but Belarussian
President Alexander Lukashenko portrays himself as loyal to Russia. In 2010-2012, he arranged oil imports from
Azerbaijan and Venezuela, which cost much but increased his bargaining
power. Nevertheless, the recent decline
in oil prices implies a lower difference in conditions on importing Russian oil
for Belarus and for the rest of the world, creating pressures for economic
reforms, says Ales Alachnovic, Vice President at CASE Belarus. Probably Belarus
must raise the retirement age. Since its
non-government securities markets are underdeveloped, however, a switch to a
fully funded system is unlikely to occur soon.
Armenia
The pension system in Armenia has been affected by emigration of the
working-age population and by disincentives among workers against saving, which
have made financing pensions difficult. In 2005-2008, the government transformed
its pay-as-you-go system to one with a fully funded component. In 2010, it established four pillars for the
system. One was the social pension,
granted to people 65 years old or above, with up to 10 years of service. The second was the contributory state
pension, for people with more than 10 years of service; a participant in
mandatory funding would receive only a base component from this pillar. Mandatory funding applied to people born in
1974 or later, or to volunteers older than 40.
Voluntary funding took effect in 2011; mandatory funding, in 2014. The
government introduced the reform under a pay-as-you-go deficit of 44.4 billion
Armenian dram ($92.4 million at the current exchange rate), compared with 3.8
billion dram (almost $8 million) in 2007. Unlike other countries in the Eurasian
Economic Union, Armenia has one retirement age for men and women, 63.
The fully funded components suffer from a lack of investment
opportunities in the country, which implies exchange rate risks from the need
to invest abroad. Outstanding corporate debt is below $8 million, much less
than inflows for the fully funded component.
Inflows could buy up the entire equity market in 15 months. After the
new system takes effect, the fully funded component will exceed the total value
of Armenian government securities in 5 months.
Inflows amount to 10% of bank deposits, large enough to induce reckless
lending by banks, according to the US Agency for International Development.
Citizens and opposition factions protested the mandatory component. In April 2014, the Constitutional Court
declared this component unconstitutional, since the duty of providing mandatory
contributions can reduce one’s salary below the minimum wage. The law must be
amended by September 30, reports Lenta.ru.
The 2014 law requires pension contributions of only state employees
older than 40. For private employees,
the same rules would take effect in three years. During that time, they may choose to
participate in accumulation schemes of one of two private companies managing
pension assets. Mark Horton, International
Monetary Fund Mission Chief to Armenia, supported the reform, according to
ArmenianReport.
Kyrgyzstan
The government’s Social Fund finances pensions and social insurance.
The pension system operates under a 1997 law that established state pensions
and a 2008 law that established individual accounts.
An old-age pension in Kyrgyzstan consists of: A flat-rate benefit,
amounting to 800 soms or 12% of the average wage last year, whichever is
higher; a transition component; a defined contribution component; and a benefit
based on the value of the individual account from 2010 onward. The transition
component is average earnings for 60 consecutive working months, times 1% for
every year of insured employment before 1996.
The defined contributions account is calculated as accumulated
contributions over at least one year, starting from 1996 onward, times a
coefficient and divided by 12 months.
The retirement age is 63 with at least 25 years of registered employment
for men and 58 with at least 20 years for women.
Like the fully funded system in Kazakhstan, defined contribution
accounts in Kyrgyzstan encourage employees to save for retirement. However, the
collected contributions are not invested in securities. Instead, the government assigns notional
“interest” for them, so the burden on the state budget remains.
In 2014, a gradual increase in the retirement age for women was
proposed, but there are no plans to equate it to the men’s age. Instead, the
women’s age would be 60. The government
regards the age structure as favorable for paying pensions, since working-age
people comprise 61.1% of the population and only 6.6% of Kyrgyzstanis are above
working age. But by 2050, the
percentages are expected to change. The working-age population will be 57.3%;
and the share of the population above working age, 16.2%, with male life
expectancy increasing from 65.3 to 72.7 and the female counterpart from 73.5 to
78, reports Diapazon. Traditional family
attitudes, which are strong in Central Asia, may sustain the gender difference
in retirement ages. The history of
revolts in Kyrgyzstan also makes increasing the retirement age politically
infeasible.
Agreement on Pension Provision for
Citizens of the Eurasian Economic Union Countries
Since 2015, the Eurasian Economic Union countries have been negotiating
pension issues for people who work in one state but are citizens of
another. In November, the Eurasian
Economic Commission decided that the basic pension will be paid by the state of
the retiree’s residence. The accumulated portion of the pension will be
exported fully. If the person
registering to receive pensions has special working conditions and then
registers to receive pensions on the territory of another state, only work
experience will be taken into account, reports Atameken Info.
This pension pact was ratified in January 2016. Pensions based on work experience before the
agreement took effect will be paid in accordance with previous international
agreements, while pensions for work experience after the agreement takes effect
will be paid by the government of the country in which the work is done,
reports KyrTAg (Kyrgyz Telegraph Agency).
The new agreement is intended to enable Eurasian Economic Union members
to plan retirement more easily and to maximize their benefits if they work
abroad. This would encourage foreign work.
Given the likelihood of adverse changes in pensions in each member
state, however, retirement planning may still be difficult.
Conclusion
Demographic trends, tax collection issues, and the need to develop
financial markets have been inducing transition economies to switch to systems
including an accumulated component, to increase the role of the private sector
in pension provision and to increase the retirement age. Among countries in the Eurasian Economic
Union, Kazakhstan initially progressed the most in establishing a fully funded
system with private funds, but it re-nationalized them by unifying them. Defined contribution accounts were introduced
later, and employers must pay part of the pension. Pension assets may be re-transferred to the
private sector.
As the country of origin of the 1998 financial crisis, and having had a
strong pro-Soviet opposition in the 1990s, Russia was slower than Kazakhstan to
reform pensions. The lack of a developed
stock market in Kyrgyzstan precludes a fully funded system there, so the
country relies solely on defined contribution accounts.
Armenia is the only Union member with the same retirement age for men
and women. Recently, it introduced a fully funded component, but it depends on
investments in foreign assets and thus suffers from foreign exchange risk. Belarus has been the slowest in pension
reform but can preserve its welfare benefits due to Russian aid.
The new agreement on pension provision for citizens in Union countries
allows receipt of the basic pension in the country where a temporary resident
works, while her accumulated portion of the pension will be fully
exported. This agreement is meant to
help workers maximize pension benefits.
Dmitriy Belyanin has a Master’s degree
of Business Administration in Finance and a Bachelor of Arts degree in
Economics from KIMEP University. Since
2007, he has been writing on issues in economics and finance ranging from stock
markets to environmental economics. He is the associate editor of this blog.
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