Financial exclusion of the older generation

Population ageing is one of the main global demographic trends of our time. The internal policy of the “aging” states is reconstructed taking into account the factor of the age structure qualitative changes. At the same time, the importance of a permanently growing group of older people in maintaining sustainable rates of socio-economic development is also increasing rapidly, but there is still a number of barriers which on the whole can be defined as “social exclusion”. The financial component of this phenomenon has a significant impact on the level and quality of the older generation’s life. The purpose of this article is to study the nature and factors of financial exclusion, as well as to determine the extent of this phenomenon prevalence in the world and in Russia. The analysis of the existing conceptual approaches and empirical studies in the field of financial exclusion is carried out. It is proved that the value of the indicator of the proportion of the population making savings for “the old age” is one of the main differentiating factors of the older generation’s financial exclusion level. Strategic documents and studies of financial literacy and exclusion in Russia suggest that older people are among the most vulnerable category of the population in terms of financial accessibility. The level of financial exclusion of the older generation in Russia is several times higher than in developed countries, which largely affects the financial strategies of the elderly population. The population’s savings activity in terms of saving money for the old age is also significantly lower as a whole than in most developed countries. Taking into account the increasing contribution of an ever-growing group of older people to the socio-economic development the task of improving financial literacy of this population category is becoming increasingly important.