Retirement reform picking up in Kazakhstan

The retirement reform is picking up in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports from the government meeting. The main objective of the reform is to gradually raise the retirement age for women from the current 58 y.o. to 63 y.o. within a decade. According to Vice PM Kairat Kelimbetov, the retirement age would be first raised in 2014. In the course of the campaign, the lawmakers want to solve the problem of women's pension savings being lower than those of men. The gap is explained by women working less - they take maternity leaves and retire earlier - and earning less then men. "45 percent, or 3.8 million of the total number of individual pension accounts are owned by women. The average pension savings of women are 25 percent smaller than those of men. The difference results from women working during shorter periods of time than men and from the gender difference in labor payments. By equating the retirement age of men and women, we are providing them with an opportunity to earn themselves larger pensions," Kazakhstan Minister of Labor and Social Protection Serik Abdenov said during the government meeting. A special attention is given to the employees working in tough and hazardous conditions. Their employers will have to allocate an additional 5% of the wages to their pension fund besides the regular 10%. This step should be an effective way to make sure that people doing dangerous jobs have decent pensions, because they retire from hazardous jobs earlier than those who work in normal conditions. "The existing legislation also provides special terms for those working in tough and hazardous conditions via pension deductions by the employers. In this relation, we suggest to introduce additional compulsory professional pension deductions in the amount of 5 percent of the wages," Seirk Abdenov said. According to him, the list of such jobs will be approved by the government. He also noted that the new regulation would impose no big load on the employers, as the pension contributions are deduced before taxes. "We believe that the changes would motivate the employers to improve the working conditions. The amendments will be made to 10 codes and 26 draft law in relation to this regulation," the Minister added. By Baubek Konyrov