Nov 29 2007

Kazakh Pensions Are A Disgrace!

Category: Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 2:33 am

I was speaking to a friend recently, and discovered one of their relatives had just reached the official pensioner age. The relative has chosen to continue working in their current job. Not that most people have a lot of choice… The MONTHLY pension here is just 11,000 tenge! That equates to around $85, or if you prefer £40, to live on. Although some essentials are cheaper in this country, a lot of prices are catching up, without a matching rise in wages or pensions. For those pensioners living solely on a their state pension, I simply can not imagine how they manage to pay the electricity and other utility bills, buy enough food to survive 4 weeks. That is completely ignoring such ‘luxuries’ as clothing or fuel for their transport, if they have any.
When it comes to most matters with this country, I stay fairly neutral – it is difficult to criticize any system without having lived through the multitude of changes etc., however this pension level just seems immoral.
Anyway, I’ll hop off my soap box for now, at least until someone gets me fired up about the equally scandalous level of pay doctors get paid here.

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4 Responses to “Kazakh Pensions Are A Disgrace!”

  1. Paul McElroy says:

    What about the doctor’s level of pay? I’ve been to Karaganda and toured a hospital my friend was interning at. I can imagine it must be pretty low, but as an intern studying in Kansas I bet he gets paid squat over the summer vacation anyways.

  2. ChrisM says:

    The last time I heard a doctor discuss their wages (this was in a public hospital, obviously private ones pay more) was a year or so ago. They got paid the princely sum of 20,000 Tenge. (Thats just under 80 quid or $160 if you prefer).
    It may be that public sector doctor’s wages have improved since then (I doubt it), or that this doctor was being paid an unusually low amount (a small possibility, I just don’t know that many doctors well enough to actually ask them about their income level).

  3. Dan The Man says:

    $160 for his salary is the norm not the exception, this extreme low pay also extends to teachers and other public sector workers, crazy, and they wonder why there’s a lack of good health care here !

  4. ChrisM says:

    Thanks for the confirmation, I didn’t want to go stating that that wage level was normal without knowing for sure.
    Hopefully see you soon – I’m pretty much recovered now from that stupid flu.