Implementation and Outcomes of Social Policy Reforms of Early 2000s in Russia: Reassessment in Retrospect

The article considers the original plans, implementation and outcomes of social policy reforms initiated in late 1990s — early 2000s in the areas of labor market, social security, pensions, and health. For each of these areas the author regards the initial goals, implementation level and attainment of the goals, as well as a follow up transformation of policy agenda. In all the four areas implementation level of key policy measures was rather low. By this criterion, no one of the reforms could be regarded fully successful. However, the degree of attainment of initial goals, at least in 3 of these areas, proved to be much higher than the level of policy implementation suggests. Very high economic growth during 2000s was, perhaps, the most important contributor to the attainment of the goals. High economic growth led to accelerated poverty alleviation and reduction of unemployment, facilitated increases of pensions and public fi nancing of health care. Nowadays, in the context of newly emerging opportunities and threats, such as population ageing, policy agenda in all of the four areas is shift ing towards new priorities, whereas many of non-implemented policy measures from the repertoire of the early 2000s seem to be less important or even outdated.