BRAZIL: Women Activists Call for Broader Social Security Reform

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 27 2003 (IPS) - A proposed reform of Brazil’s social security system currently under discussion in Congress will not reduce gender inequalities in the labour market, nor will it extend social benefits to informal sector workers, complain women’s rights groups.

The reform fails to address the question of the five million female domestic employees who work without labour protection and social coverage in this country of 171 million, or the homemakers who receive no remuneration for work that is essential to society, like child-rearing and household chores, Guacira Cesar de Oliveira, co-director of the Feminist Centre of Studies and Advice (CFEMEA), said in an interview with IPS.

The government proposal for a constitutional amendment on social security will also have a negative impact on women because its principal aim is to set a limit on the benefits of public employees, one of the few sectors of the formal economy where women comprise a majority of workers, she added.

For example, 80 percent of those employed by the government of the southern state of Sao Paulo are teachers, 90 percent of whom are women, noted the activist.

CFEMEA, a non-governmental organisation based in Brasilia, is calling for pensions reform based on a broader conception of social security, which would encompass social welfare and health, as well as the retirement and pensions system.

The financing for an expanded social security system along those lines would come from several sources, including taxes on the net profits of companies, rather than only from contributions based on the earnings of workers, as under the current system.

According to experts consulted by CFEMEA, that would more than cover the system’s current deficit, which the government invokes as the main reason for the reform. It would also enable the creation of ”measures of inclusion,” or mechanisms that would reduce inequality and the marginalisation of millions of Brazilians.

The proposal introduced to Congress by the government of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after three months of debates in the Council on Economic and Social Development, comprised of 82 representatives from a broad cross-section of society, is aimed at reducing the system’s deficit, in order to prevent its collapse in the long-term.

The deficit, which amounted to 23.5 billion dollars last year, according to official data, is the biggest negative figure in the government’s accounts, without counting the interest on the public debt.

Authorities argue that the reform will make the economy more reliable and attractive to investors, and will provide better conditions for economic growth.

The main target of the constitutional amendment being debated in parliament are civil servants, who now retire with a pension that is equal to their salary, while the pensions of private sector workers are fixed on the basis of their contributions to the system, with a ceiling equivalent to 520 dollars a month.

The reform is designed to narrow the gap and combat the inequality between public and private sector pensions, said Social Security Minister Ricardo Berzoini.

Reports that thousands of public sector retirees draw pensions that are higher than the salaries of the president and Supreme Court judges generated strong popular support for the proposed measures, which are predictably resisted by civil servants.

The draft amendment establishes that retired public employees will also begin making contributions to the social security system, and that the pensions accrued by civil servants hired after the amendment is approved will have the same upper limit as private sector pensions.

Those who would like larger retirement incomes will have the option of participating in complementary pension funds.

In addition, the minimum age for retirement is to increase from 48 to 55 years for women and from 53 to 60 years for men.

But the director of CFEMEA complained that the reform does not include measures aimed at combatting gender inequalities in the labour market, and fails to address the question of the growing informal economy, which has boomed in the past two decades.

Women in Brazil continue to earn less than men doing the same jobs. And although 57.7 percent of public employees are women, they rarely ascend to the highest positions. The same occurs in the private sector, where only 20 percent of managerial posts are held by women, said de Oliveira.

Moreover, women make up a majority of workers in the informal economy, where they enjoy neither labour rights nor any prospect of drawing a pension. Informal sector workers total 40.7 million, or 57 percent of the economically active population, according to the Ministry of Social Security and Social Welfare.

Without a ”more inclusive reform” based on broader goals that would reduce the number of informal sector workers who receive no coverage and would recognise the rights of domestics and homemakers, the social security system will continue reproducing the inequalities that plague Brazilian society, and women in particular, argued de Oliveira.