The conditions and particularities of women’s work, their additional burdens of reproductive and elder care-taking, as well as the persistent wage gap between men and women, among many other aspects, require the establishment of a lower retirement age for women, said findings presented by the Costa Rican judiciary’s Gender Commission.

Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System, Alice Shackelford, warned about the patriarchal nature of Costa Rica where women are the primary and often sole caretakers of infants, elders, and other members of the family.

“This translates into women carrying an unequal social burden, which translates into an economic burden. The World Report on Human Development in 2016 noted that Costa Rica is not improving on the issue of inequality in retirement schemes, and it is an important issue to be reviewed. The challenge is the implementation of international human rights conventions, such as the CEDAW Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,” said Shackelford.

Judge Arias Guillén, representative of the Public Defense who spoke at the event, highlighted the national and international standards that support the defense of the human rights of women in Costa Rica. The magistrate stressed the importance making visible the specific characteristics of women’s work and their contributions, and the unique disadvantages they often experience in the workforce.

“The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has said that the condition of women in the workforce is a condition of discrimination; this should be countered by differentiated measures of a positive nature,” continued the judge in referring to the reasoning behind a lower retirement age for women.

This is called incorporating a gender perspective into the subject of retirement, and was one of the main conclusions reached by the panel of experts at a forum entitled “Retirement Schemes and Human Rights of Women” held last Thursday at San José’s judiciary.

Organized by the Gender Commission and the Technical Secretariat for Gender, under the leadership of the Presiding Judge of the Criminal Cassation Chamber, Doris Arias Madrigal, the panel included, in addition to Judge Arias and Alice Shackelford, the Minister for the Status Of Women, Alejandra Mora Mora; the President of the National Council of the Elderly Person (Conapam), Zulema Villalta; the public defender Laura Arias and the Chief of the Technical Secretariat of Gender, Jeannette Arias, who moderated the event.

The activity is part of a series of actions and efforts carried out by the Gender Commission and the Gender Secretariat in recent weeks to take into account the biological and social differences between working men and women in the reform of the judicial branch retirement regime, a hot national political and economic issue that is currently under discussion in the Legislative Assembly.

In her presentation, Women’s Minister Mora stressed the importance of reforming retirement systems not only based on actuarial studies that only consider individualized parametric measures, saying, “… when we plan a regime … it also has to have non-parametric measures, and be based on an integral vision. Therefore, a gender perspective has to be considered.”

Judge Arias Madrigal said the judiciary’s governing board is carrying out an actuarial study with a gender perspective to understand its financial impact on the Judicial Branch Retirement Fund.

She was optimistic Costa Rica would adopt affirmative action in favor of women in matters of retirement as have some Latin American countries recently.