Polish lawmakers have taken up a petition calling for a uniform retirement age of 62 for women and men, a change that would replace the current thresholds of 60 and 65. The proposal also includes protective mechanisms related to the nature of work performed and periods of providing care.
The petition was submitted to the Sejm this year. Its authors argue that a single retirement age would equalise the length of time women and men draw pension benefits and also help narrow the gap in benefit amounts. Under current rules, women can retire at 60 while men must wait until 65. According to Statistics Poland (GUS), average life expectancy is 82.26 years for women and 74.93 years for men.
The parliamentary Committee on Petitions debated the matter in March. During the session, Zbigniew Wasiak, head of a division in the social insurance department at the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, said the ministry sees no grounds to open legislative work on the proposal. In his assessment, the existing disparity in retirement ages is compatible with European Union law.
Ministry opposes change, committee passes petition on
After the debate, the Committee on Petitions decided to conclude its work on the petition and referred it to the Committee on Social Policy and Family.
– I am in favour of equalising the retirement age of women and men. Whether this should be done as the ministry proposes, namely by equalising it downwards, or in another way, is a political decision – said Liwiusz Laska, president of the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS), in an interview with PulsHR.
Retirement decisions shifting despite unchanged rules
Meanwhile, ZUS data show that more than 187,000 people who reached retirement age in 2024 have not yet applied for a pension. At the same time, a record 846,900 retirees remain in employment and collect their ZUS benefit simultaneously.
The number of pensions below the statutory minimum has risen to over 459,000 and the trend is deepening from year to year. Poles themselves are postponing the moment they leave the labour force, not because the law has changed, but because an earlier pension increasingly means too large a drop in income.
Źródło: WNP.PL, Fot. PAP/Marcin Obara
