Single-Person Households In Russia Increasing Rapidly At Both Ends Of The Age Spectrum – OpEd

The number of single-person households in Russia is increasing rapidly both because of the share of younger Russians who have never married and that of older ones who are living longer even though their partners have died, according to the Moscow Institute of Sociology.

Both are a matter of concern to the state. Fewer marriages among the young are further depressing the birthrate the Kremlin cares so much about , and that in turn is reducing the number of people who can help the older generation and forcing the government to spend more to compensate (ng.ru/economics/2026-08-04/1_9552_marriage.html).

Census data show, Institute researchers say, that the number of never-married Russians increased from 70 per 1,000 in 2002 to 104 per 1,000 in 2020. The data also show that in 2002, 658 out of every 1,000 women over 70 were widows, with 427,000 of those aged 70 to 74 and more than 620,000 of women 75 and older.

According to Oksanda Kuchmayeva, Ekaterina Vasiliyeva and Ekaterina Knyazkova, the share of single-person households has more than doubled in the last decade alone “with the greater number of people living alone found within the country’s working-age population.

Among men, those under 45 dominate the category of those living alone; while among men, they are “typically widows over the age of 60. Thus most of the men living alone have never married, although a quarter of those doing so are divorced. Only one woman in five now living alone has never married.

Among the young, Russians living alone have higher incomes, more space and higher expectations of what their lives should be like than those who don’t, the sociologists report.  Among the elderly, the reverse is true on all three metrics, the Institute of Sociology finds.

One of the consequences of this trend, the sociologists point out is an increase in “the elderly dependency ratio and a projected increase in the state’s social obligations toward the support and servicing of elderly citizens living alone,” a large and growing problem for an already cash-strapped government.

About Paul Goble

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at [email protected] .

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