Preparing Russians for Retirement from the Perspective of the Active Longevity Concept (Based on the Yaroslavl Region)

The article describes attitudes towards the choice of labour, financial, and health-preserving trajectories of Russians in preparation for retirement based on the results of the author's sociological study conducted using the method of personal interviews (n = 650). It is shown that in the context of demographic aging in Russia, there is a gradual shift away from understanding aging as a mutual alienation of an elderly person and society, and the elderly - exclusively as objects of care, towards considering the elderly as active participants in public life, in relation to whom the policy of active longevity is implemented. It involves a system of measures to promote employment of the elderly, maintain material well-being, improve health and quality of life, and learning throughout life. However, the index of active longevity in Russia remains low. The assertion is substantiated that the system of measures in line with the concept of active longevity policy has a proactive nature, that is, it is aimed at future generations of elderly people, rather than the current ones, and involves preparation for the period of aging, marked by retirement. Based on the data of the conducted sociological study, it is shown that the labour, financial and health-preserving trajectories of respondents who have not reached retirement age, regarding the preparation for the retirement in some ways are in line with the principles of active longevity, and in some ways, contradict them. At the same time, the main differences are observed between respondents under 46 years of age and pre-retirees. The respondents' orientation towards long-term employment, readiness for lifelong professional training, mastering non-traditional forms of employment (for example, readiness to work on Internet platforms), awareness of responsibility for ensuring their economic well-being in old age and the use of various strategies for this (professional-labour, savings, investment), the attitude towards giving up bad habits and maintaining physical activity (sports, physical education) create the basis for living out their aging by future pensioners in accordance with the principles of active longevity. There are also barriers that hinder the transformation of the aging model in the direction of following the principles of active longevity: the influence of objective factors of economic instability, a low level of financial literacy of the population, the lack of special financial planning skills in preparation for retirement, the lack of a culture of health care.