Lonely old aged: surviving or living an active life?

• Main Authors: Gennadiy L. Voronin, Vladimir Ya. Zakharov, Polina M. Kozyreva
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology 2018-09-01
• Series: Социологический журнал
• Online Access: http://jour.fnisc.ru/upload/journals/1/articles/5992/submission/proof/5992-61-11170-1-10-20181108.pdf

This article analyzes the life satisfaction dynamic among lonely old age in Russia throughout the course of the last two decades, together with its determinants, based on methodology from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of the Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE). It is shown that in Russia, which, during its transformational period, went through each phase of the business cycle with high amplitude of fluctuations, life satisfaction among lonely old ageed is more closely linked to the key economic indexes than in countries which did not have to deal with such intense economic and social turmoil. The interconnections between life satisfaction among lonely aged and their main determinants bear the same characteristics in Russia as they do in many other countries. Proposed are certain measures for improving government social policy with regard to elderly people.