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ADB study puts two retirement-age options before Tajikistan, 63 for women or 65 for all

The Asian Development Bank’s country diagnostic study for Tajikistan, dated October 2026, proposes raising women’s retirement age from 58 to 63 or setting 65 for both sexes, and lengthening the minimum contribution period to 30 years. The average old-age pension in 2024 was 22.1% of the average wage. Asia-Plus, which reported the study on 21 October, carried no government response.

By CAW Staff22 October 2026
Grouped bar chart of Tajikistan’s retirement age now and under two ADB options: women 58, 63, 65 and men 63, 63, 65 years, with the women’s current bar at 58 in amber.

The study, Economic Transformation for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Tajikistan, sets out the options in two figures on pages 159 and 160: one raises the retirement age for women gradually from 58 to 63, the age that now applies to men, the other raises both to 65. Asia-Plus reported the proposals at 11:34 Dushanbe.

The bank’s argument is demographic and fiscal. Life expectancy rose from 68.4 years in 2010 to 76.6 in 2024, with a national target of 80 by 2030, so each pension is paid for longer. The minimum insurance period for a labour pension would rise from 25 years for men and 20 for women to 30 for both.

The money side is where the study presses. About 2.1 million people were insured in 2024. Social tax actually received in 2025 came to 2.96 billion somoni against 15.3 billion calculated, a collection rate of 19.3% by Asia-Plus’s reading of the study. The bank proposes moving the financing of social pensions to the state budget and changing the rules of the non-state pension funds.

The average old-age pension in 2024 was 475.8 somoni a month against an average wage of 2,148.9, a ratio of 22.1%, up from 18.4% in 2023. Social pensions averaged 334.9 somoni. From 1 September 2026 pensions rose by at least 15%, which the paper puts at 2026 averages of 741.31 somoni for labour pensions, 591.06 for insurance pensions and 412.60 for social pensions.

Life expectancy rose from 68.4 years in 2010 to 76.6 in 2024, with a national target of 80 by 2030, so each pension is paid for longer.

Two pension lines already run alongside the advice. The ADB approved on 2 October a $20.5 million grant for the modernisation of the Agency for Social Insurance and Pensions, which CAW reported on 9 October, and a delegation led by the agency’s director Khalimzod Abdurahmon Dosti spent 13 to 16 October at Georgia’s Pension Fund with the World Bank, studying the digitalisation of the pension system, Interpressnews reported on 21 October.

A diagnostic study is advice, and Tajikistan’s retirement age is set by law. The options now sit on the record with a bank that funds the pension agency, and the number that frames them is the pension at 22.1% of the wage.

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