After having clarified its proposal to revalue small pensions, the government expects to correct another part of its pension reform. Accused of disadvantaging women with the decline in the legal retirement age, the executive wishes to open the site of “family rights”, in the coming months, to counter the effects of his bill. “We must review all family rights”, insisted in this sense the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, on the set of the morning of France Info, Monday, February 13.
Behind this expression, there is an overhaul of several mechanisms linked in particular to maternity rights or survivors’ pensions. Thanks to her, the government hopes to act on the many inequalities in the labor market which have an irreparable effect on women’s retirement pensions. This project could bring in nearly 30 billion euros for current or future retirees. The executive hopes to reduce the pension gap with men from 40 to 28%.
Rebuilding the rights of women who have experienced pregnancy
The government is first thinking of overhauling the rules which were originally intended to protect careers that were cut off due to pregnancy. He considers them unsuitable today. “The debate on women is extremely complicated, it is based on elements and rights which were created at a very different time”, affirmed this time on February 8 at Public Senate the Minister of Labor. In this sense, Olivier Dussopt wants to review the consideration of maternity leave in annuities.
Today, “employees in the private sector with a child are entitled to eight quarters when those in the public service are entitled to two”, repeat the members of the majority at will. As women’s careers lengthen, these quarters originally designed as “compensation” become “less useful and less relevant”, although they “obviously retain an interest for those with choppy careers”, explained Olivier Dussopt Monday on France Info. The government intends to overhaul them without knowing precisely how their abolition could prove useful for women’s pensions.
Rethinking the survivor’s pension
The other file that the executive wishes to open concerns survivors’ pensions. They are sources, in the eyes, again, of the minister, of “quite terrible inequalities” between the “thirteen regimes” in force. Today, the system is particularly complex. There are a lot of standards between the variable conditions of age, resources, length of marriage or non-remarriage. And the calculation methods vary.
Emmanuel Macron already wanted to reform them, in 2018. The aim of the President of the Republic was to combine the sum of these rules into one and thus guarantee the surviving spouse 70% of the amount of the couple’s income. However, the controversy had swelled. Many had seen in the reform of the executive a maneuver to abolish the survivor’s pension, which had forced him to give up. The file could be on the ministers’ table again. The measure added to the overhaul of pregnancy law will have a cost for the State. It should exceed 20 billion euros per year.