ZAGREB, October 14, 2019 - The women in Croatia who have this year retired after full length of service are entitled to higher pensions than their male counterparts, the Zagreb-based Večernji List daily reported on Monday.
The margin of only 24 kuna (3.3 euros) is slight, however this difference in favour of women is an important headway having in mind the fact that pensions earned by men have always been higher than those earned by their female peers, the daily newspaper says.
For instance, the average old-age pension for the men who went into retirement in 2013 after full length of service was 18% higher than the average-old-age pension for female retirees in that year.
The average monthly pension allowance for the men who early retired in 2013 was 25% higher compared to pension allowance for their female counterparts.
On the other hand, the average old-age pension for the men who went into retirement in the first seven months of 2019 is 3020 kuna, whereas the average monthly old-pension for female retirees in that period is 3044 kuna.
The data do not include figures about recipients of pensions earned abroad.
Pension allowances paid to women have been on the rise in the recent years due to the fact that women remain on the labour market longer and longer and due to the fact that their statutory pension age is being equalised with the pension age for male recipients.
In the first seven months of this year, 30,000 employees met conditions to go into retirement.
Of them, 14,801 were women, and slightly below 6,000 were women who retired after full length of service. About 3,000 were women who retired early and were entitled to early old-age pension, and the remaining number of new pension recipients were recipients of family pension allowances.
The Croatian Pension Insurance Agency (HZMO) has reported that so far, 6,842 pension recipients have been registered as those who are entitled to an additional six months of service per each born or adopted child. And this results in a two-percent rise in pensions per each born or adopted child, the daily newspaper notes.
These entitlements that depend on the number of born and adopted children have been added to pensions for female recipients by a recent decision made by the government led by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, the Večernji List recalls.
More pension system news can be found in the Lifestyle section.
