December 2019

Armenia. Parliament adopts voluntary early retirement plan for most incumbent Justices

By Stepan Kocharyan Parliament passed the early retirement plan for Constitutional Court judges with 75 votes in favor and 34 against. The opposition had earlier said it will vote down the government-backed bill envisaging voluntary early retirement mechanisms for most of the incumbent Constitutional Court Justices. Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan told lawmakers in parliament that certain technical amendments were made in the bill after the first reading. According to Badasyan, the bill has been approved by the Venice...

September 2018

Armenia to raise minimum pension by 60 per cent

Armenia’s government announced on September 17 that it plans to increase pensions by 60 per cent from January 1, 2019. According to the new bill, the new basic pension will be 25,500 drams (approximately 52.50 US dollars), which the government claims will be enough to top the threshold of food poverty. Armenia’s current basic pension is 16,000 drams. The news was broken by Mesrop Arakelyan, an advisor to Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan. However, on his Facebook page, Mr Arakelyan...

December 2017

Armenia’s population continues ageing

The population of Armenia is ageing, says the report “The Demographic Handbook of Armenia, 2017,” published by Armenia’s National Statistical Service (NSS) on December 24. One of the main problems associated with the demographic situation is the population ageing, the process of which was greatly accelerated in Armenia during the post-Soviet period, the report says. In accordance with the United Nations’ scale of population ageing, if the share of the population aged 65 and over exceeds 7 percent of a country’s...