RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: The Poor Women of Eva Peron’s Generation

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 7 2000 (IPS) - They were born in the 1920s and 1930s in Argentina and in their youth believed the future was theirs. But today they suffer many forms of social exclusion because, in addition to being elderly and female, they recieve pitiful pensions or are working in the most unstable of jobs.

Eldery women’s issues are so hidden from view that experts, hard data or studies in the area are difficult to come by. To learn about these women, one must often consult them directly, or extrapolate from data about the elderly in general, which includes both men and women.

As International Women’s Day approaches (March 8), the invisibility of elderly women is ironic. They belong to the generation of Eva Perón, one of Argentina’s most important historic figures, whose efforts led to unprecedented political, social and labour victories, including women’s suffrage in 1951.

“If Evita were alive, she would undoubtedly be here alongside us,” Elba Maraboto, 72, told IPS. For the last 12 years she has participated with other elderly people in the weekly protests outside the congressional building to demand a minimum monthly pension of 450 dollars, which is still less than the official subsistence salary.

But the march has become one more element of the Buenos Aires landscape, which means it is proving less effective and serves more as group therapy. Several dozen retirees and pensioners carrying signs read their speeches, chant their slogans, converse among themselves and leave – almost always on foot, as they do not want to spend what little money they have on bus or subway fares.

Norma Plaa, the most outspoken of the movement’s leaders and capable of grabbing a government minister by the neck or hanging from the iron fence surrounding Parliament, died three years ago of cancer, the same illness that transformed Eva Perón into a martyr at the age of 32.

In Argentina, with a population of 35 million, there are more than five million people over age 60. Demographers focus on the fact that it is an aging population compared to most of other countriess because life expectancy continues to climb while the birth rate keeps falling.

There are nearly 15 million economically active people in this Latin American nation, and 3.2 million retirees and pensioners.

The retired have worked outside the home and paid into the government retirement system, while pensioners recieve a monthly stipend based on the retirement payments made by a spouse who is now dead.

The remaining elderly men and women – nearly two million – do not receive any type of personal income. Most live in conditions of abject poverty.

Among retirees and pensioners, women are the majority, and they live an average of three years longer than men. But among pensioners only, women’s presence is massive. In 1999, they received 1.2 million of the 1.3 million pensions paid each month.

According to official statistics, most women pensioners are over 70 and live alone, an especially dire situation if they are among those who receive the monthly minimum of just 150 dollars.

The total payments are low in all cases, but women pensioners face the hardest challenges. At one time, they led active lives working in their homes and caring for their children. Of the retirement checks distributed, 65 percent are less than 300 dollars per month, but 87 percent of the pension checks are even smaller.

A study by the government Office of the Elderly revealed in 1999 that 85 percent of all retirees and pensioners are not able to meet their basic needs. An retired couple over age 65, for example, who own their home and do not have a car or telephone, require an estimated 578 dollars per month to make ends meet.

But the pension phenomenon, the most critical issue for elderly women, is tied to the traditional model of an economically active life.

The president of the Social Security Commission in Argentina’s Lower House, María América González, told IPS that women usually have not worked continuously due to maternity and other domestic issues, meaning that now they do not have access to retirement benefits and so only receive small pensions.

“A woman who cannot live on a pension check goes out in a desperate search for employment and usually obtains it, but the jobs are very unstable and usually jeopardise their rights,” said González. These elderly women will “accept just about any kind of work even if they earn less than others.”

The legislator pointed out that “all the social achievements made over the last decades to begin to put the labour situation of women on par with that of men have now been eroded.”

Amalia Wyczykier, 61, a retiree who receives a 320-dollar check each month and lives with her unemployed 55-year-old sister, is looking for work but her age excludes her from a major portion of the labour market. She also takes care of her mother, 90, who receives a monthly pension of 222 dollars.

Between the three, their incomes do not reach the subsistence minimum for two elderly people, and they often must turn to the monthly food bank provided by government social services for retirees and pensioners.

“I can drink my cup of tea and that is enough, but my mother’s medications are extremely expensive,” stated Wyczykier.

Her family’s history is similar to that of millions of Argentines. Wyczykier’s father was an immigrant from Poland, arriving in this South American country in 1930. Her mother followed two years later. “They didn’t have anything, but they progressed and had a shop where we all worked – my mother, my father, my sister and I,” she said.

The shop was closed for good several years ago after being looted by thieves. Wyczykier’s father, who had always told his wife that it was not necessary to pay into the social security system, died at age 83. Now the rest of the family, all women, struggles to survive.

“My father died believing that all this would work out, saying that in the 1930s things had been bad too, that there were soup pots on each corner for those who didn’t have work and that people moved in search of work,… but I watch as the years go by and see that this is getting worse,” she said.

Legislator González emphasised that the 1940s and 1950s “were a glorious era for women” because in just a few years they achieved great things. But now, with the national unemployment rate running at approximately 14 percent, “their rights are easily violated.”

Marta Martínez is 73 years old and retired. After raising six children, she began working outside the home and in just a few years was promoted to manager at a department store. She retired two years ago. Between Martínez and her retired husband, 82, they do not receive the amount of retirement money they need to take care of themselves and their mentally ill son.

She tried to come up with something to do to earn some extra money and ended up working weekends for a real estate office, showing homes and apartments. “The young girls don’t want this job because it doesn’t pay well and they have to sacrifice their Saturdays and Sundays,” Martínez told IPS.

She earns 20 dollars per afternoon at this weekend job. Because she proved herself to be trustworthy, this year the company asked her to cover someone else’s job for 15 days, Monday through Friday, all day, for which they offered to pay her 200 dollars total.

When Martínez was working as store manager she earned the equivalent of 2,500 dollars per month, but she sees this 200 dollars for three weeks’ work as essential extra income.

Martínez also belongs to the Eva Perón generation, but far from the work benefits promised back then – vacations, maternity leave, overtime pay and retirement pay for men and women – today she must face a reality that is in many ways more difficult than what her own immigrant mother lived through in the early 1900s.