Maeve Higgins: Retirement age has become a taxing and vexing issue

Protestors in France are fighting for much more than a number in their demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron's bill raising the legal retirement age. It's about the level of respect society has for labour and fairness

Protesters in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday where French unions held their first mass demonstrations since President Emmanuel Macron forced a higher retirement age through parliament without a vote. Photo: AP/Jean-Francois Badias

PENSIONS are not usually considered an exciting topic of conversation. Drone on about contribution fees, risk management, and lump sums for long enough, and in ordinary times, your companion would back away.

Well, these are not ordinary times, particularly not in France. Protests, some of them numbering over one million people out on the streets, have rocked French cities after parliament adopted an embattled bill raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, pushed through by President Emmanuel Macron. 

Sanitation workers have been on strike for over two weeks, and rubbish is piling up on the iconic streets of Paris. It’s a dramatic moment centred on pensions, and it’s a moment representing much more. Pensions reflect how much or how little a society values labour and parity — they are a bald expression of the price paid for a lifetime of work.

The drum Macron keeps beating, dutifully danced to by so many, is that as life expectancy rises and the ratio of workers to retirees decreases, the only solution is to extend our working lives. That drum is loud and insistent, but it should not drown out the sound of an entire band of alternative options. 

French unions insistently emphasise the biggest and most obvious one — taxing the rich. Pas possible, according to Macron. Which is a better plan — making older people work ever closer to the end of their lives? Or making wealthy people share the money they, in many cases, made out of those same workers’ labour? 

Apparently the former is the best idea. 

Taxing the rich their fair share is equally unthinkable to neoliberals like Emmanuel Macron as it is to rabid capitalists like Donald Trump.

I spoke with Áine Ní Léime from the University of Galway, where she researches extended working lives in Ireland and other countries. She is not surprised to see the French people protesting; they are highly politically aware and have a long history of defending their rights, but she is watching closely nonetheless.

In 2012, Irish people were still reeling from the economic crash following the global financial crisis when the Government announced that our working lives would be extended. Despite our relatively young population compared to other European countries, the Government planned to introduce a steep increase in our working lives. 

It was increased to 66 in 2014, with plans to increase it to 67 in 2021 and 68 in 2028. Ms Ní Léime sketched out what happened next: “It was really after a couple of years that workers started to recognize the impacts of raising the State pension age for them and began to react.”

Her work shows that gender is a massive factor in pensions, with women coming out on the losing end. “There’s a gender wage gap already, and over their lifetime, women are still the primary carers in pretty much every country,” Ms Ní Léime said.

So, lower earnings and lower pension contributions mean there tends to be an even bigger gender pensions gap than the existing gender pay gap.

In coalition with trade unions, Irish workers and NGOs such as Age Action and the National Women’s Council galvanised their actions into the ‘Stop 67’ campaign. That was instrumental in successfully forcing the Government to back down from its initial goal, which was to extend peoples’ working lives up to 68. 

It became a major issue in the 2020 election campaign. The Government set up a Pensions Commission, which recommended a much more gradual increase. Last September, the Government announced that it would not increase the State pension age from 66 for the moment, but would introduce a flexible pension age model.

Of course, 66 is two long years away from 64, which is the age the French refuse to accept. It’s difficult to make straight comparisons between countries’ policies to extend working lives around the world because so many factors go into those policies. 

Retirement in the USA

That said, the US is a prime example of what happens when the brakes come off and the age we are made to work creeps ever higher. The USA has an older population and implemented extended working lives policies much earlier than Ireland. Mandatory retirement at age 65 was abolished in 1986, and the “normal” age for entitlement to full Social Security benefits shifted to 67.

However, Ms Ní Léime explains: “The higher age matters because Social Security benefits continue to increase in the three years between the ‘normal’ retirement age and age 70, so that means that 70 is the de facto age for entitlement to full Social Security benefits, rather than the ‘normal’ retirement age of 67.”

Visitors to the US are often surprised by the number of older people working in physically demanding jobs like those in the service and hospitality industries. When and if a State pension becomes available is not about the freedom to work. It’s about how much the State and the government of the day value a life. It’s about being forced to stay working no matter what, working just to survive.

Dock workers at the port of Marseille in southern France on Wednesday as oil shipments in the country were disrupted amid strikes at several refineries in western and southern France. Photo: AP/Daniel Cole

It’s important to note again that this pressure to work is unevenly distributed. The US government has backed the privatisation of pensions since 1981, a process Mr Ní Léime says is long-recognised as disadvantageous to women who, as previously mentioned, are subject to lower lifetime earnings and the expectation that they provide unpaid care, meaning periods out of the formal workforce.

Men and women who work in tough, low-paid jobs are also punished by extended working life policies, according to her research. She said: “People in low-wage private sector jobs, particularly if the jobs are physically demanding, are really disadvantaged compared to others, and that is true both in Ireland and in America.”

The timing and the size of workers’ pensions, from the State and also from the private sector, are a concrete manifestation of the level of respect society has for labour and fairness. French workers know in their bones that this moment is a pivotal one, and they are correct; they are fighting for much more than a number.