After years of discussions, postponements, and delays, this evening the Knesset Finance Committee approved the bill to raise the retirement age for women in Israel for second and third reading, subject to a review vote. Under the bill, the retirement age for women will rise from 62 to 65, over a period of eleven years. The retirement age for men is currently 67.
The bill contains various measures designed to make the reform easier and mitigate the financial harm to women, expanding their entitlement to income supplements, unemployment benefits, and other welfare payments, several of them at the insistence of women members of Knesset from the coalition.
The cost of the mitigating measures was estimated at nearly NIS 1 billion, of which hundreds of millions stem from items introduced in the Finance Committee and in the Knesset.
Finance Committee chairperson MK Alex Kushnir said, "In the past few months I have held countless discussions that lasted into the night on the bill to raise the retirement age, together with my women colleagues who rightly insisted that their important voices should be heard all along the way: Michal Rozin, Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, Efrat Rayten Marom, Naama Lazimi, Iman Khatib Yassin, Nira Shpak, and Tatiana Mazarsky. We formulated a plan that is the result of considerable thought, that will take care of all women in our society."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 21, 2021.
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