Pension Reform under Sarkozy: A Quantitative Rather Than a Qualitative Change

Abstract

A brief historical reminder of the evolution of pension schemes since the war is necessary to understand current debates, since the key concepts which structure contemporary debates were adopted in the aftermath of the Liberation. The French pension schemes were, by the end of the Trente glorieuses, those ‘thirty glorious years’ of uninterrupted growth that ended in the mid-1970s, one of the most cherished achievements of post-war government. They had reached their maturity, and had practically eliminated old-age poverty. In the mid-50s, a universal minimum income for the over-65s, called the Minimum vieillesse, had been created to top up the new pension schemes. But, whereas 59 per cent of the over-65s were eligible in 1959, by the early 1970s, the new system of pension schemes was running at full speed, and the number of people requiring this type of safety net decreased sharply. Enough contributors were in employment, and contributions were sufficient to provide for retired workers. The system became more generous in 1971, when the rate of pensions reached 50 per cent of each pensioner’s previous wage instead of 40 per cent, the minimum working life for eligibility was reduced from 37 years to 30 years, and the basis for the calculation of the pension was shifted from the last ten years to the best ten years of a person’s working life. Besides, supplementary schemes were set up, first for managerial and administrative staff (the cadres) in 1947, and then, in 1961, for all workers (Join-Lambert et al., 1997: 458).KeywordsPension PlanPension SchemeSocial Security ContributionPrivate PensionPublic Sector WorkerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.