“It is unacceptable that Polish women should receive subsistence pensions,” says Civic Platform. “It is public knowledge that they obtain lower wages and take maternity leaves and thus are deprived of possibility of earning fair pensions.” Therefore, the government plans to reduce men’s pensions and increase women’s pensions in return.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk is now faced with one of the most challenging tasks in his political career, namely finishing the pension reform. The fact that the reform was originally undertaken by Law and Justice, and resulted in an abysmal fiasco, adds to the gravity of the problem.
At the moment ZUS is the only institution paying out pensions, however, in 13 months the Polish will also be obtaining pensions from the retirement funds which are governed by their own peculiar rules. In practice it means that the pension rates are directly proportional to the money poured.
Already 13.2 million of Polish have joined the retirement funds and the money gathered since 1999 amounts to 140 billion zł.
Women will lose most in the face of the new rules of estimating of pensions due to the fact that they retire 5 years earlier, take maternity leaves (during which their retirement fund premium is lower) and usually obtain lower wages. All things considered, their pensions may possibly only amount to 60% of men’s pensions.
Civic Platform claims to have found a solution. The idea is to calculate the average lifespan, which is a crucial factor in pension planning, and establish the rate of pensions accordingly. Statistically, women live 5 years longer than men.
“If it had not been for our idea, women would fall victims of the pension scheme. We mustn’t consent to subsistence pensions for women,” says Zbigniew Chlebowski, the head of the parliamentary club of the Civic Platform.
Marek Góra, one of the originators of the pension reform, is of the same opinion. As he says, “we mustn’t make pension rates dependent on gender.” According to Mr Góra, everybody should be treated equally since there are numerous factors decisive in lifespan aside from gender, such as education, general wellness or genetic code. Since it is impossible to take all of these into account, we shall not base decisions solely on one of them.
Przemysław Gosiewski, the deputy Prime Minister of the previous government, did not consent to the aforementioned idea. In his opinion the losses of men are out of proportion to women’s profit.
By reckoning prepared by Jeremi Mordasiewicz from the Polish Confederation of Private Employers- Lewiatan, a 30-year old female kindergarten teacher, who now obtains a gross salary of 1600 zł, will in 30 years be granted a pension of 600 zł, while the pension of her brother, whose salary is now the same, will come to 1500 zł. Under changes suggested by Civic Platform she would receive a pension of 700 zł (15% more), and her brother would obtain a pension of 1275 zł (15% less).
Teresa Guzel, the director of ZUS department, is of the opinion that politicians are now faced with a somber problem. They are in quandary about whether or not to sympathize with women and consequently increase their pensions. A question: ‘why the system shall compensate for someone’s low retirement fund premium?’ may be posed. Guzel claims that the entire problem would be non-existent if men and women retired at the same age.
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Urszula Nikiciuk 