Majority of Kazakhstan residents against raising retirement age for women: poll

The majority of polled Kazakhstan citizens are against raising women’s retirement age, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the social survey of the Institute of Political Solutions (IPS). 81.1 percent of the polled citizens do not support the initiative of getting women to retire at the age of 63. According to the poll’s results, the words of Kazakhstan National Bank Chairman Gregory Marchenko about the accumulative pension system “The more you work, the larger pension you accumulate” are not favored by the society. The initiative is mostly firesly rejected in eastern areas of Kazakhstan where the number of opponents reaches 95 percent. Meanwhile, every 8th respondent (12.9 percent) is positive about the suggestion to “adjust the retirement age of men and women”. These are mostly the residents of Astana (28.8 percent) and the western regions of the country (19.4 percent). Gregory Marchenko talked about adjusting the retirement age of men and women. According to Marchenko, the main problem hindering these changes is unwillingness and inability to understand the advantages of raising and leveling the retirement age of men and women. The Chairman of the National Bank refers to Kazakhstan Pension Law as stating that Kazakhstan residents may retire at the age of 55 in case of sufficient pension savings for adequate pension payments.