This is undoubtedly the flammable dossier of this beginning of the year 2023.
While Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne presented the content of the pension reform on Tuesday 10 January 2023, trade unionists and activists continue to worry about the consequences of theextension of the contribution period to 64 years in 2030. Can the new announced measures also have an impact on women’s pensions? There are many who say that yes, women will be heavily penalized by the reform. Explanations.
Retirement, a reflection of wage inequalities
“The extension of the contribution period will obviously affect women more”, explains Christiane Marty, engineer and member of the Scientific Council of ATTAC and the Copernic Foundation. “On average they already have shorter careers. They will have even more difficulty meeting the necessary contribution period and their pension will be reduced, as it is calculated in proportion to the length of their career. »
The data speak for themselves on the disparities between women and men in the world of work, which will have a direct consequence on access to retirement: if the wage gaps are already significant, women earn on average 22% lower income than men, the old-age pension can only be a reflection of this. She is even on average 40.5% less.
Lower salaries, but also shorter and incomplete careers. “This reform does nothing against inequality, it just aims to save money”, continues Christiane Marty.
“Elisabeth Borne has announced that it will be fairer for women, because the discount cancellation age will not change. However, the discount is an additional allowance to the pension which is very unfavorable to incomplete careers: it is a double penalty for incomplete careers.
Keeping the discount and cancellation age, where is the progress for women? »
An impact on women approaching retirement age
According to 2021 data from the Department of Research, Studies and Statistics, 43.9% of 55-64 year olds are inactive. A study by Agirc-Arrco shows that more than a third of retirees in 2020 were not employed at the time of retirement, but were either unemployed, in a situation of inactivity without pay, or in a condition of disability. . Of these, 60% were women. “Reducing the retirement age by two years by saying we have to work harder is ineffective and incorrect », deplores Christiane Marty. “Employers are already getting rid of the elderly. Those who are already out of work before retirement have no chance of finding a job. This will only lengthen this period of precariousness in which they perceive social minimums at their best.”
By pushing back the retirement age, the government says it wants to increase the employment of the elderly. But according to Sophie Binet, head of gender equality at the CGT, the current situation is already not favourable, the reform will not have the desired impact on this point:
“Every time we postpone the age, contrary to what the government says, the employment of the elderly does not increase, because companies don’t want the elderly, because they don’t want to pay them and because there are jobs that are too tiring.
On the other hand, it will increase the number of unemployed older people, with or without unemployment benefits and it will hit women even more than men. »
The discomfort of so-called women’s jobs, a blind spot of the reform?
Elisabeth Borne has also defended a reform she will require “in consideration of the professional usury linked to the conditions of exercise of some professions”. It is better to take into account discomfort at work, to prevent it but also to compensate for it by allowing people to leave the world of work earlier, this is a request from the trade unions.
Currently, the Professional Prevention Account or C2P (formerly the Personal Hardship Prevention Account) allows employees to leave before retirement age if they meet a certain number of hardship criteria. Only “a minority” 10,000 people have benefited from it, and more men than women, underlines Sophie Binet, who also underlines how the discomfort of predominantly female jobs is today “hidden” :
“The criterion of repetitive work is missing, which is based on female execution trades, such as the cashier’s trade for example. With regard to the transport of a heavy load, the transport of a bag of cement is considered a heavy load, but not the transport of a sick person or a child and the transport of small cumulative loads is not taken into account.
There is also the criterion of noise, we are talking about that of machines, but not that of people, while the important thing is the result you hear.
Finally, the nervous load that characterizes feminized professions is not taken into account, the fact of working with people who are suffering, who are close to death. »
Women are the solution
For Sophie Binet it would be a matter of locating the situation of women “at the heart of every reform” : “First of all because they are very disadvantaged in the current system, but also because they are the solution. If we applied equal pay, this would generate a very significant increase in contributions over the next forty years to finance this famous deficit that would threaten the future of our system. Why doesn’t the government make equal pay? »
Christiane Marty also defends a radical change of society because “rejecting this reform is not enough”, she thinks:
“We have to improve the system and that means taking into account everything that comes upstream: tackling employment inequalities; on discomfort, not only to repair it but also to prevent it; seriously address the pay gap between women and men.
It should also be an opportunity to make a real comparison, because the climate emergency also requires us to reconsider what we produce, to respond primarily to social and ecological needs, to reorganize work with new rights for employees to restore meaning to work . Retirement is in fact a global choice of society. »
A day of strikes and mobilizations will take place on Thursday 19 January, on the initiative of all the unions, but also supported by Unef and Fage, on the side of the students.
To find out how the pension reform will affect your retirement age, as well as the calculation of your rights, there are several simulators that allow you to get an estimate:
- The pension insurance simulator
- The service I’m interested in Info Retraite
- The simulator of the Nos Retraites collective
Photo credit: Mart Production via Pexels
Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
