How to explain the stakes of the pension reform to the youngest?

Retirement, everyone is talking about it at the moment, but what is it exactly?

It is a right. It has existed for some workers since the end of the XNUMXth century, but even today some countries do not recognize this right or do not apply it.

A right to what? At rest after a life at work whether pleasant or painful. It is a right to live with dignity when one no longer has the strength or the energy to work.

So, we can say that it is the action of retiring from active life, quitting one's job and receiving an income, a retirement pension, or a pension for short, until death.

We say we are retiring but in reality we are retiring. It can be short or long, it depends on the people's state of health. Women and men aged 65 in 2022 would live on average 89 and 86 years, but much less in good health: 77 years and 75 respectively.

In France, the workers and the bosses give money every month to a fund, it is a contribution on the salary. This fund (sometimes there are several funds) pays pensions for retirees.

So those who work pay the pensions of those who no longer work, the retirees, every month. This is why it is said that the working and retired generations are united. This is a named distribution model. It is not savings but intergenerational solidarity. When we work, we contribute to pay, with all the people of a generation, the pensions of the older generations.

But there are conditions for retirement: currently, you have to work and contribute at least 42 years and be 62 years old to apply for retirement. The pension is calculated on the basis of years spent working and wages earned. So if we only contribute for 10 years and we reach the age of 62, our retirement is very small. Under certain conditions, one can work until the age of 67 or else receive a minimum pension and avoid poverty.

Right now, the government wants to change the rules. He wants workers to contribute more, for 43 years and to leave later at the age of 64.

This is to keep the balance between active people and retirees who spend more time in retirement because they live longer. Only, the unions do not agree and other social tensions appear with the strikes planned for this Thursday, January 19. While everyone seems to agree on having a system that is balanced between what working people will pay and what retirees will receive, there are different ways of achieving this: increasing the retirement age but also increasing the contributions of employers or reduce the pensions of the richest, for example.

Diane rottner, CC BY-NC-ND

If you also have a question, ask your parents to send an email to: [email protected]. We will find a scientist to answer you.

Roxana Eleta de Filippis, Lecturer in sociology, Le Havre Normandy University

This article is republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.

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