AZE.US
About 3 million people in Azerbaijan receive social payments or salaries directly from the state budget, meaning roughly one in three residents depends on government funding, economist Natig Jafarli said.
According to Jafarli, the State Social Protection Fund distributes approximately 900 million manats ($529 million) each month among 2.2 million citizens. These payments include pensions, allowances, stipends and targeted social assistance, totaling nearly 11 billion manats ($6.47 billion) annually.
Another 860,000 people are formally employed in the public sector. Azerbaijan spends 10.25 billion manats ($6.03 billion) a year on their salaries, he said.
Combined, social payments and public-sector wages cost the state close to 21 billion manats ($12.35 billion) annually.
The calculation provides only an approximate picture because the two groups may overlap – for example, some public-sector employees may also receive certain social payments. Nevertheless, Jafarli argued that the scale of the population’s dependence on the state budget remains extremely high.
“If the number of people actually living in the country is below 10 million, this proportion rises even further,” he said.
“Such a high level of dependence on state payments is one of the main factors negatively affecting civil society activity.”
Jafarli also highlighted the relatively low level of pensions in Azerbaijan. The average monthly pension stands at 595 manats ($350), while the average old-age pension is 633 manats ($372).
The average monthly salary in state-funded institutions is approximately 1,160 manats ($682), according to the figures he cited.
Jafarli said Azerbaijan should focus on finding ways to substantially increase pensions instead of primarily debating the retirement age.
Public-sector salaries also remain low, he noted, but employees know that their income will fall even further after retirement. That, he argued, helps explain why proposals to raise the retirement age generate relatively little public resistance.
“We may be the only society in the world that is not alarmed by an increase in the retirement age and does not protest against it,” Jafarli said.
AZE.US