Dynamics and Peculiarities of the Social Well-Being of Military Pensioners
Based on data obtained during the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of HSE (RLMS-HSE) while Monitoring the Economic and Health Situation in Russia, the dynamics and characteristics of the social well-being of such a large and only seemingly monolithic social and demographic group of elderly people, as military pensioners, are analyzed. The results of the survey convince that the dynamics of the satisfaction of military pensioners with their lives critically depend on the direction and depth of changes in their living conditions. Their level of social well-being exceeds that of people receiving other types of pensions. As the economic crisis worsened, their concern for the future of their families began to grow, and they began to assess their own life prospects as worse. Since many of them retire without exhausting their creative and physical reserves, the proportion of military pensioners who continue working is twice that of those receiving other types of pensions. Working reserve soldiers, which are a more active and successfully adapting group, far surpass the non-working people in terms of their social well-being. One of the significant factors of stratification is the social resources available to military pensioners through their acquaintances and connections. Along with that, material and status differentiation does not deprive them from the traditional community mentality. After being discharged to the reserve, they are more likely to refer themselves to the “military class”, or “the community of former military”, etc., rather than to one of the professional groups or strata of society. In the community of military pensioners, the unity of value and motivational orientations is largely being preserved. A small number of them strives toward values of individualism, and gives priority to the market and private property, highly values individual and economic freedom. Most of these values are not accepted by them or are shared only partially, instead preferring not necessarily high, but indispensable stable material prosperity and equality provided by the state.