There is no final political decision on raising the retirement age for women so far: Vice PM Kelimbetov

There is no final political decision on raising the retirement age for women so far, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing Vice PM Kairat Kelimbetov as saying March 12. “Today we have unveiled a draft legislation on the planned state-run single pension fund (…) alongside with that the country’s Labor Minister Serik Abdenov unveiled some amendments into the current pension legislation. Notably, the Minister suggested gradually raising the retirement age for women. As of today the draft amendments are at the stage of discussions”, he said. Central Bank Governor Gregory Marchenko also once again commented on raising the retirement age for women. He stressed that the major issue is usually shortage of decent working conditions: “I believe middle-aged women need decent working conditions in the first place; should there be decent working conditions in place, the issue of retirement would be of much less importance. I want to remind that both women and men in our country can retire early in case their pension savings are sufficient. Women who have given birth to five children can retire at 50 (…) in the National Bank of Kazakhstan there are over 300 women aged of 55 and over 200 women aged over 58. However, when there are decent working conditions in place, everyone is willing to work as long as possible”. When unveiling the draft amendments in the country’s Majilis (lower chamber), Labor Minister Serik Abdenov announced March 12 that plans are there to gradually raise the retirement age for women from the current 58 y.o. to 63 y.o. within a decade. “The changes should be gradual. For women who will be retiring before 2018 the retirement age will be annually raised by half a year within the following 10 years”, according to Mr. Abdenov. Vice PM Kairat Kelimbetov stressed that the retirement age would be first raised in 2014.