The government proposes to scrap the “widows’/widowers’ pension”

Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Torbjørn Røe Isaksen (Conservative Party)Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Torbjørn Røe Isaksen (Conservative Party).Photo: Berit Roald / NTB scanpix

The current scheme with supplementary pensions for widows and widowers should be removed, the government believes. Women are the losers, according to the Pensioners’ Association (Pensjonistforbundet).

This autumn, the government will present a proposal to restructure the benefits for widows and widowers as part of the pension reform, writes Dagbladet. The government aims to implement the change from 2023.

‘Widow and widower benefits are from another time when Norway looked very different, and most women were not at work,’ says Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion Torbjørn Røe Isaksen (Høyre) to the newspaper.

He points out that the number receiving “widows’ and widowers’ pension” has more than halved since the 1970s to 17,000 recipients. At the same time, he emphasizes that the proposal will contain reasonable transitional arrangements.

General Secretary Harald Olimb Norman of the Pensioners’ Association is strongly critical of the proposal.

‘It is easy to sit in government offices and make theories that women should have a full-time job and the same salary as men. But in practice, it is not so. We know that many women work part-time – many also involuntarily – and that women’s wages are lower in percentage terms than men’s wages,’ he points out.

In 2017, a government-appointed committee proposed replacing the National Insurance benefits for widows and widowers under the age of 67 with time-limited adjustment support.

The committee also advocated phasing out the special rules that can provide widows and widowers with higher old-age pensions and disability benefits, the so-called survivors’ rights.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today

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