As of October 1, part-time contributions will count as a full day in Social Security to calculate the retirement pension, as well as benefits for permanent, temporary disability, birth and child care.
The change comes due to a European imperative and involves the modification of article 247 of the Social Security Law. This is how the Executive adapts the regulations after differences from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the Constitutional Court, which considered the calculation of contribution periods to be discriminatory on the basis of sex.
The reason is that the majority of part-time workers are women, up to 75% according to CJEU estimates.
Until now, part-time and part-time workers only added half a day of contributions for each day of work. That is, you had to work at least two days to add one day of Social Security contributions.
How does the measure affect the pension calculation?
Royal Decree-Law 2/2023, of March 16, on urgent measures to expand the rights of pensioners, reduce the gender gap and establish a new sustainability framework for the public pension system, establishes that A partial day will count as a full day for contribution purposes.
Until now, part-time and part-time workers only added half a day of contributions for each day of work. That is, you had to work at least two days to add one day of Social Security contributions.
The translation is that they had to work longer to access retirement, to collect a contributory pension or to collect 100% of the pension. Now it won’t be like that anymore.
As an example, to retire at age 65 with a full pension, you must prove 36 years and 6 months of contributions. A part-time worker would need twice as much time.
This change will affect almost two million people and will equalize coverage and benefits for full-time and part-time employees.
The SEPE already applies the new measure for calculating pensions
This measure is not entirely new. The State Public Employment Service (SEPE) had already been applying it to calculate unemployment benefits, also to adapt its regulations to a CJEU ruling.
Specifically, the SEPE understands that the worker contributes a day worked both full-time and part-time.
Fight against the gender gap in pensions
The change in the calculation of half-time work joins others that seek to combat the gender gap in pension calculation.
The first has to do with improving integration in contribution gaps in certain cases, something that mainly affects women and was included as part of the pension reform.
In addition to covering up to 100% of the minimum base for the first 48 months, women will also cover months from 49 to 60 with that percentage and with 80% for the rest of the period up to month 84.
The other is the new supplement for reducing the gender gap, which the Government had to rename and change to also include men by European mandate. This measure pays a supplement to fathers and mothers who have seen their professional career and contributions affected by the fact of having had children.
The supplement to reduce the gender gap is aimed at people who receive a contributory pension and adds 30.4 euros per month for each child up to a maximum of four descendants. This supplement can only be collected by one of the parents.
