Giving PGU to women of legal retirement age is an ethical imperative

In the old Chilean public pension system, which is still in effect for people who managed to resist pressure to switch to the AFP system in 1981, a woman has the right to retire at 60, and the lifetime pension is the same as for a woman at 65. A 0,000-year-old man with the same salary and number of years, regardless of his marital status and number of charges.

In AFPs, a single 65-year-old man today receives about a third more pension than a single 60-year-old woman with the same savings. Even if he renounces his right to retire at age 60 and postpones this decision at age 65, the man’s pension is about one-sixth higher.

The source of this discrimination against women is the privatization of social security, because we have abolished the public system based on defined benefits financed by the contributions of active workers and switched to the individual capital system; it varies with the accumulated individual “savings”, and therefore with the life expectancy of retirees.

Women have a longer life expectancy than men. In its project presentation published on November 7, the current government points out that in 1981 the average life expectancy for women was 81 years and will be 91 years in 2023, with which women must self-finance a life expectancy of 31 years. year. In the logic of the current system, it is clear that women cannot benefit from the minimum rights because they receive lower salaries than men.

The 2008 pension reform under President Bachelet’s government created a guaranteed base of benefits in terms of social protection for both those who did not receive a pension (the non-contributory column) and those with very low pensions. In fact, it became a ventilator for the system, as a private system of forced savings with public funds continued to be maintained. One of the promoters of this initiative at that time was Mario Marcel. The AFPs and the defined contribution system, which continues to reduce the amount of pensions according to the individual capacity of each worker, remain untouched.

As the inclusion of a solidarity column was important, this reform did not correct discrimination against women, as the death tables used to quantify pensions continued to be used and harmed women; but at the same time, since this reform, attempts have been made to raise the retirement age for women underhand, by requiring that they be 65 years old to be offered all tax benefits.

Now the situation has worsened. 634,989 women have retired in the last fifteen years; Half of these, 317,495 people, were able to self-finance a pension of $30,685 or less.

What does it mean? In fact, since the legal retirement age for women is 60, they are de facto obliged to continue working until they reach 65, the date on which they can access the solidarity benefit today called Universal Guaranteed Pension (PGU). the amount is $193,917, which otherwise represents 48.48% of the minimum income and is $16,612 below the poverty line.

The new pension reform proposal announced by President Boric continues this absurd and unfair discrimination against women; therefore, it seems appropriate to recommend at least the following minimal correction: PGU should be delivered to women of legal retirement age of the required age. Don’t wait another 5 years to get government subsidies.

Now is the time to end this discrimination. When, if not now, in a self-described feminist government?

Of course we can’t wait any longer.