Senate approves pension draft law in first reading

Kazakhstan Senate has approved the draft law reforming the pension system in the first reading, Tengrinews.kz reports. 33 deputies voted for the main draft law, 4 deputies were against and 6 of them abstained from voting. The results of the voting for the auxiliary draft law were as follows: 0 deputies against, 42 senators for the law and 1 deputy abstained. Svetlana Dzhalmagambetova was among those who voted against adoption of the draft law, in particular, against raising the retirement age for women. “Women’s pursuit of savings and attempt to remain capable of working until 63 will result in a birth rate drop in Kazakhstan. Demography experts forecast a tangible demographic cavity in the time when the whole world is concerned with the problem of population aging, improvement of demography and bringing the ratio to 3.5 working people per one retired,” she said. Senator Iran Amirov also expressed his disagreement with the law raising the retirement age for women. “The government’s reference to gender policy, men and women equality is not acceptable, as there is no absolute equality between men and women. Women raise children, deal with their upbringing, do the housekeeping and are responsible for their family’s integrity,” Amirov said and gave another reason: “Our country is the 9th largest in the world, it is ranked 8th by oil reserves and 2nd by uranium reserves and 1st by chrome deposits. We go boasting about this. Despite that, we make our women who are tired enough work until the age of 63. What's wrong with us?” In his turn, Senator Kuanysh Aitakhanov read out a letter that came from women of South-Kazakhstan Oblast: “We, people of South-Kazakhstan oblast, are against raising the retirement age for women. This is a bad for women. These are the women who carried the heavy load and sacrificed their health in the first years of our independence. One should try to compare lives of our women with those of European women." "Our women need support. That’s what they write,” Aitakhanov said. The draft law reforming the pension system provides for creation of the Common Pension Fund, equaling of retirement age, compulsory pension professional payments, elimination of employment discrimination, retaining of employment for people aged over 55, discounts for retired women and support of elderly villagers. Raise of the retirement age for women will be gradually implemented over the next 10 years in one-year-steps starting from 2014. “We have to stress that this part of the law will not by compulsory. The state provides women the right to retire at the age of 50 if their savings are sufficient. Besides, there will be a guaranteed retirement at 53 for women who gave birth to 5 children or more and at 45 for citizens of the regions that suffered from nuclear tests,” the press-service of Kazakhstan Ministry of Labor and Social Protection announced earlier. By Renat Tashkinbayev