On September 3, the president of Belarus signed a decree that increases the minimum contribution period to qualify for an old-age pension, from 5 years of paid contributions to 10 years, effective January 1, 2014. According to the government, the change is necessary to improve the long-term sustainability of the country’s pay-as-you-go (PAYG) public pension program in the face of rapid population aging. Recent data from the United Nations project an increase in the old-age dependency ratio—the population aged 65 or older as a percentage of the population aged 15 to 64—from around 20 percent in 2010 to 36 percent in 2050 (under a medium fertility scenario). At the same time, the total population of the country is expected to have one of the steepest declines in the world, from the current 9.4 million to 7.4 million in 2050 (a decrease of 21.3 percent).