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Pensions: growing indignation

Interrupted careers to care for families, lower salaries, part-time contracts result in a pension gender gap of 52%

The fact that female workers are paid less than their peers (24% on average), are struggling with a precarious working environment as well being those who most sacrifice or interrupt their careers to care for children has a great impact on the quality of life of women as they grow older. Pensioners will demonstrate today in Barcelona to demand decent pensions for the umpteenth time but despite being a collective struggle, women face a double battle, because when they stop working and the numbers add up, the discrimination they have suffered throughout their working lives becomes evident.

On average, say unions, the pensions of Catalan women are 40% lower than men. Latest figures from Idescat indicate that in 2016 women received an average retirement pension of €765 and men, €1,325. But there is an even more apalling result, as many women, especially the elderly are not entitled to a pension because they have not worked in paid jobs or not for the required number of years. The gender gap in people between the ages of 65 and 79 years is 52%, in the EU, it is 44%.

In practice there has been much debate about how to facilitate the reconciliation of work and family life and how to ensure equal opportunities in the workforce to reduce the wage gap but little has been done to correct the situation. Spain’s system of calculating pensions is weighted heavily against the working woman. In fact there has been no improvement in the gender gap since 2005, despite more women entering the workforce. Experts say a profound transformation of society is needed but there are measures that could be implemented now to mitigate the situation. That however, requires a commitment from government that does not seem to exist.

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