Head of the Federation Council Committee on House Rules and Parliamentary Governance Andrei Kutepov suggested that the term ‘single father’ is formalized and such men should be able to retire earlier, Parlamentskaya Gazeta publication reports.
The senator said that single mothers currently have the right to receive their pensions earlier, but single fathers cannot do so.
“I ask you to consider the possibility of introducing amendments to give single fathers with many children the right to retire early, and to enshrine the term ‘single father’ in legislation,” says the document submitted to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, who is in charge of social matters.
The document implies that if a man is a single father of five children, he should be able to retire at the age of 55 (10 years earlier); at the age of 61 if he has four children, and at the age of 62 if he has three children.
According to a Federation Council survey, there are 7,714 single fathers with three or more children in 49 Russian regions. Information about the rest of the regions is not available yet. Andrei Kutepov believes that the real number is bigger because not all fathers make themselves known.
“In any case, there are not too many of them, so the state can afford to let them retire even at the age of 40,” says tax expert and director of the Uproshchyonka (‘simplified taxation system’) website Nikolai Yepikhin. “There are not many single fathers because most often children stay with their mother, both per case law and tradition.”