The ‘Retirement Age Requirement’ Issue

Along with the change in retirement conditions after the legal change on September 8, 1999, the retirement age requirement (EYT) had been on the political agenda for a long time. Political leaders from all parties were making statements on the issue, especially at election times. Most prominently, President Erdoğan claimed that "Even if I lose the election, I will not pass the early retirement law". Yet, for those who are familiar with Erdoğan’s erratic U-turns in many cases, due to the decline in vote rates, the President later brought this law to the parliament's agenda by presenting it as great good news.

Before the law in 1999, people who would only work for 20-25 years (20 for women, 25 for men) and retire could only do so between the ages of 55-65 with a gradual retirement age application after this date. But for a long time, they have made the government lift the age restriction for them by establishing associations and doing social media activities. Yet, this opened the door to a new debate. As of September 9, 1999, people who started to work as registered with the Social Security Institution (SGK) will retire at the age of 55-60, while those who started work the day before, on September 8, will be able to retire at the age of 38-43 and receive a pension. This will appear again in the future as an imbalance that disrupts work peace.

Indeed, the only imbalance that has been created has not been in earning pension entitlements. In countries such as Turkey, where the social security system is not managed properly, the employee-retired balance constitutes a serious contestation. In a standard, normal, ordinary pension system, the employee pays the system, a fund is formed there, and the value collected in the fund gradually increases with the management of that fund. The fund reimburses people who are due to retire. That is, the fund evaluates the employee's money. If there is a social aspect of the pension system here, some of the shares paid by the citizens working at that time are transferred to the people who are already retired. While this approach claims that the pension system in Turkey is also a social one, it is calculated that as a result of the situation created, there will be 1.4 to 1.6 employees per pensioner in Turkey. Normally, this number is expected to be at least 4 so that the pension system becomes sustainable. However, while Turkey's pension system is already unsustainable, it will not take long for it to collapse completely after the new regulation.