Family is extremely important for Russians, and 67% of them help their aged relatives financially, although only 43% believe they need such support, a recent poll revealed.
Helping family members is a custom in Russia
A recent poll by WCIOM.ru revealed that over 2/3 of Russians are helping their aged relatives financially.
At the same time, 41% of respondents believe that elders do not really need financial assistance. Among the people aged 60+, 44% of respondents don’t think aged family members are in need of money.
Would your Russian wife wish to help her family (parents, grandparents) who stayed behind? Most likely, yes. But it’s obviously done on case by case basis and most often she is not asking the husband for extra funds but sends them some of the money she earns.
- 18% of respondents help their older family members with money regularly.
- 30% of survey participants do it from time to time.
- 19% of respondents rarely assist their relatives financially.
- 31% of Russians don’t help their seniors (parents, grandparents, etc,) in a material way.
2/3 of people in Russia assist their seniors financially.
How often do people in Russia visit aged relatives who live nearby?
- Most often respondents visit nearby relatives daily or several times a week (37%).
- 25% of them visit older relatives several times a month.
- 23% of respondents said they rarely visit older relatives living in the same town or region, but still see them at least once a year.
- 7% of respondents visit their seniors less than once a year, while the same share of survey participants don’t pay visits at all.
All in all, 60% of survey participants have some senior family members who live in the same city or region, while 25% stated they don’t have such relatives.
Your Russian bride will probably want to visit her parents every year. Most women who marry foreigners usually come to see their parents regularly, with husbands or by themselves. In fact, even among people who took the survey, 9% of respondents have older relatives in another country.
It’s pretty normal if you think that Soviet Union, which was one big country until the end of 1991, broken down into 15 independent republics with their own governments. Many people moved around from one area to another and after 1991 they found themselves living in a separate country than the rest of the family. Often families reside in 3-4 countries or even more. So, marriage to a foreigner isn’t something highly unusual for citizens of ex-USSR.
Data: WCIOM.ru
Read also:
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- Gender roles in Russia: 54% of Russians believe a man must feed the family
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Hi, Elena. Do Russians/Ukrainians/other Eastern European people take in their elderly relatives like some people do in the US, various Central American, and various Asian countries do? So they won’t have to be dependent on what’s called here in the US as assisted living facilities and so they won’t have to have a nurse come in every so often to help. Thanks,
David, I do not understand your question.
There is no such thing as sending an aged parent to a nursing home in Russia. Kids look after their parents.
That was my question, do they take them in like they do in those other places? Thanks.
They don’t “take them in”, they move to the parent’s apartment and inherit the property, most of the time. That’s one reason why kids do it, not just out of compassion and kindness. In Russia, a lot of apartments are still in government’s possession (since the times of the USSR when all apartments were property of the state), but the person who occupies a unit is able to allow someone else to register there, and this person inherits the property after the death of the primary occupant. Most Russians own their flats outright (no mortgage). During the times of the… Read more »
Gotcha. That does answer my question and does help me a lot, thank you much.
This is normal when a child/ grandchild look after their parents or grandparents IF they also looked after them, educate/ take care them when they was children.
The opposite also true:
So anybody, who have an alcoholic or abusive or careless, etc… parent/ grandparent should NOT look after him/ her, and mainly offer any support.
Something for something, or get what you deserve.
At least if my information correct in Russia there are no forced/ mandatory pension “contribution” from employees. This is a fine thing. Who wish to do do when parents deserve, others not forced to do.
Robert, there is mandatory pension contribution from employees in Russia, absolutely! Always was
Oh…
Thanks Elena for the correction.
Information come from here:
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/social-security-rate
Which claims there are 30% from corporations after employees, and 0 from the workers themselves.
And from here which also claims there are 0% social security tax for employees. https://shieldgeo.com/payroll-and-tax-in-russia/
“Employees are not required to contribute to social security as it is made by the employer. However, voluntary contributions may be made by individuals.”
So thank you very much for the correction of bad sources.
Robert, in the same manner Australians don’t pay pension contributions if it’s the employer who transfers funds? Of course, every person contributes (albeit indirectly), the employer is paying the “social contribution” for them. There is government Pension Fund in Russia and it receives money from all currently working people and pays out to all non-working people. It’s so ineffective though that they had to sharply raise pension age in Russia, and also the pensions are ridiculously low: Some people get only 6000-7000 a month (USD 100). The time of working as an employee (this having the social contribution paid by… Read more »
“Robert, in the same manner Australians don’t pay pension contributions if it’s the employer who transfers funds?” No, then the employer pays it. And it is a very different, and far more justiceship/ better system. In my country the system in short: 1. Employer pays (after the wage of the employee): – Social contribution 19.5 % – Educational contribution 1.5% So if I understand well this is what exist in Russia and Australia. 2. Employee pays FROM his/ her wage (so get less, than the employer send to them): – 10% pension contribution (for the present pensioners) – 7% healt… Read more »
Robert, the wage of the employee determines contributions by the employer to the pension fund. In Australia and Russia, it is also the employer who actually transfers the income tax for the employee (they never get this money paid to them). But if you tell employees in Australia they “don’t pay” taxes, they will be laughing at you. If the pension payout is calculated based on the years of employment and the size of contributions, which are based on the size of the employee’s wage, it’s hard to argue that people “don’t contribute to the pension fund”. It is a… Read more »