It is the problem that can be seen coming from afar and that, however, passes from legislature to legislature without being resolved: hold the pensions.
Unless there is a state agreement neither party wants to bear the political cost to do the inevitable: extend our working lives.
Spain spent 10,798.09 million euros in April 2022 on pensions. The number increases month by month. With the retirement of those born in the baby-boom (1957-1977), the demographic pyramid in Spain will turn around.
The accounts are very easy. Rounding up, if today for every pensioner there are three workers who maintain their pension in 2050, it will be only one who does so and that is counting on the arrival of some 8 million immigrants.
As José Ignacio Conde-Ruiz, professor at the Complutense University and deputy director of Fedea (Foundation for Applied Economics Studies), points out, “you have to increase the age of retirement in a completely flexible way. It is not about going radically from 40 hours of work per week to 0 like now. It will have to be very staggered over time: 30, 20, 10 hours, etc. People may think that how can the retirement age be increased? They will take jobs away from young people! But this flexible retirement is with a view to 20 or 30 years when there will be fewer people to work.”
The General Council of Notaries will deal with aging at a large national congress in Malaga on May 19 and 20. There will arrive 400 experts from different parts of Spain to address the matter. “For us It is the biggest challenge we face as a society.“, points out Carmen Boulet, notary and participant in the conference.
Boulet also reminds us of many legal instruments to obtain extra income while we collect the pension (life annuity, transfer of goods in exchange for food, reverse mortgage and sale of bare property) and others for personal autonomy (preventive powers, voluntary support measures, self-curatorship or living will).
In any case, as pointed out by Juan Oliva, professor of health economics at the University of Castilla-La Mancha “The key to the future of pensions is to arrive within 20 or 30 years in the best health conditions, but for this, measures must be taken right now“.
In this sense, the fight against tobacco, against pollution or childhood obesity are essential. So are the measures to promote the birth rate, such as ending job insecurity. Everything, although it seems distant, has to do with the future of our pensions.