At the gates of dire stagflation, or the same, an economic recession with high inflation rates, Brussels will force us to adjust the pensions of millions of Spanish retirees. Europe (and anti-inflationary theory) will demand that pension expenditures stop growing at the same time as prices, in the context of what are known as income pacts where workers and employers must agree to reduce their salaries and benefits.
Until that time comes, it’s worth remembering how the group of pensioners in Spain has changed. So much so that they will no longer need to be renamed and addressed as seniors, not retirees. This name change is not whimsical, but due to the need to change the view of the group of older people in Spain. An age group that is older and has significantly higher and more stable incomes than young people of working age.
The reasons are already known, but that doesn’t mean we should stop valuing the excellent Spanish healthcare infrastructures that allow us to be one of the countries with the highest life expectancy in the world. At the same time, we enjoy one of the most generous pension systems in the world, the envy of the greatest French or German. Unfortunately, the national labor market has little reason to brag: we create unemployed and precarious jobs among young people, and a new phenomenon has taken root in the last decade that has stripped Spanish companies of top talent.
Reports from the Agingnomics research center have shown that older Hispanics enjoy wealth and income unprecedented in the history that companies can enjoy. Although it must be said that we work less in Spain than our European counterparts when they turn 55. Worse employment and activity rates in this group compared to countries such as Italy, Portugal, France, Germany, Poland or Sweden, as well as higher unemployment rates and leaders in female unemployment.
If we want to stop talking about aging or pensions and focus on the potential of the 18 million Spaniards, it is urgently necessary to talk about the elderly rather than the elderly.
Contribute talent
Talking about seniors is to take into account the abilities that seniors can continue to contribute to society through employment, self-employment or volunteering, as Professor Benigno Lacort reminds us. To talk about the elderly is to develop the formula for reconciling work with a pension, penalizing early retirement as well as early retirement. If we consider seniors rather than retirees, companies will find growth levers in this group with new customers and goods and services. Seniors who will ask the companies they buy to measure and publicize their social impacts, not only in terms of environmental and gender but also intergenerational diversity. Seniors will want to voluntarily extend their activities beyond retirement age, perhaps discovering the formula for part-time work. Self-employment and entrepreneurship of seniors can be encouraged through attractive tax credits, public assistance, and reductions in self-employment quotas. And companies should follow the example of pioneer companies from other places to promote this formula as a way to extend the working life of their former employees and achieve “second careers”.
Finally, he will be a senior if he continues to train throughout his life. Data from the Bank of Spain on the distance of Spanish older workers from their European counterparts in the training activities carried out require joint action to promote new vocational re-qualification programs (re-skilling and up-skilling) by public-private means.
Although this fact is not known to the public, the elderly have become the most important group in the political field (election count) as well as in the economic field (consumption and wealth). A kind of high-level activism in Spain would not only make the collective visible, but would render blatant age-based actions by the Administration and companies unfeasible. But none of the above will work if seniors themselves, no matter how tempting it may seem to advance the official retirement age, are not aware that quitting work for more than thirty years is not economically feasible and is detrimental to their physical and emotional health. in front of your life. So yes, it will be possible to say “don’t call me retired, call me senior” in our country.