Russian urban youth’s savings culture: savings and pension attitudes

Youth is one of the strategic population groups for the state in terms of formation and investment of long-term savings in the country’s economy. In the conditions of the sanctions crisis, it is particularly relevant to study savings attitudes and behavior of representatives of this group due to a certain vulnerability of their social position and ability to adapt quickly to new socio-economic conditions. The empirical base of the work was the results of the author’s research project “Economic Culture of Russian Urban Youth”, conducted by the method of online survey in 2022 and 2023. The research sample represents Russian urban youth aged from 17 to 35 by gender, age, size of settlement and federal district. The aim of the work is to present and attempt to interpret the identified features of the savings culture of Russian urban youth in the conditions of socio-economic and political turbulence. The objectives are to describe the attitude of urban youth to savings in general and material provision of their old age in particular; the most probable, in the opinion of respondents, risks of relationships with banks and non-state pension funds; declared behavior of respondents in these areas immediately before and a year after the introduction of sanctions. The hypothesis is that the savings culture of young Russians is situational and in the period of socio-economic turbulence savings attitudes and behavior patterns will change rapidly from moderation in consumption to active spending of savings. The results of the study confirm this assumption, the main determinants are age, consumer opportunities, availability of savings, and trust in the official media. The respondents are skeptical about banks and the instrument of funded pension, estimating rather high and moderate, on the one hand, the risks of encountering the imposition of unnecessary services by bank employees, changing the terms of the contract not in favor of the bank client, as well as the risk of becoming a victim of fraud through the fault of the bank, on the other hand, the risks of depreciation of “long” savings due to changes in pension legislation, inflation and negative returns on non-state pension funds.