AZE.US
A total of 88,000 men in Azerbaijan have died over the past five years before reaching the official retirement age of 65, according to government statistics.
The figures have renewed public debate over premature mortality among men and whether the country should reconsider its retirement-age policy.
Experts cite chronic stress, cardiovascular disease – including heart attacks and strokes – poor nutrition, difficult working conditions, socioeconomic pressures and limited access to quality healthcare among the possible contributing factors.
Men employed in physically demanding industries are considered particularly vulnerable.
Azerbaijani lawmaker Mushfig Jafarov said authorities should examine the occupations and working conditions of those who died before becoming eligible for a pension.
“If we see that such cases are concentrated in a particular sector, that sector should be treated as a special case,” he said, calling for a more detailed analysis of the statistics.
The data have also prompted calls to lower the retirement age for men from 65 toward 60. Supporters argue that Azerbaijani men have a shorter average life expectancy and that many receive pension payments for only a limited period – or never become eligible at all.
Economist Rashad Hasanov cautioned that lowering the retirement age under the current system would significantly increase pension expenditures and could weaken the financial stability of the State Social Protection Fund.
He said Azerbaijan should expand the system’s revenue base and reconsider how social insurance contributions are calculated, with higher-income earners paying a proportionally larger share.
Hasanov also argued that in a resource-based economy such as Azerbaijan’s, the pension system could serve as a mechanism for redistributing national wealth.
Allocating part of the country’s oil revenues to pension payments or the State Social Protection Fund, he said, could help make the system more sustainable.
AZE.US