E-Mich - "Get Old or Die Trying: Age Discrimination in the Right to Retire"

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Manuel Valente (UCLouvain)

Many agree that compulsory retirement is unfair because it discriminates against older people. But few would say that age discrimination in the right to retire is unfair because it discriminates against the young. This article examines whether age-based rights to retirement benefits are compatible with two distributive principles of pension justice: old-age sufficiency and equality. Whereas sufficiency worries about old-age poverty, equality is concerned with equal lifetime access to retirement. Sufficiency is compatible with age discrimination in the standard right to retire, but it is not enough to guarantee just retirement rights: it fails to detect objectionable inequalities between the old and the short-lived. In contrast, equality recommends age thresholds that favor the young and short-lived, but which are at odds with the standard right to retire and may not guarantee old-age sufficiency. Equality and sufficiency are a plausible combination, but they often pull in contradictory directions. I conclude that storable rights to retire early in life (either lump-sum or regular instalments) can distribute the opportunity to retire more evenly across the lifespan while respecting the principle of old-age sufficiency.