After eight months of political negotiations in both houses of parliament, and during the night of 22/23 October, Brazil’s Senate house adopted the basic text for the government’s pension reform. Changes in the reform will affect 72 million working in the private and public sectors. The primary measure of the reform is the introduction of a minimum legal retirement age that will be set at 65 for males and 62 for females. Brazil had hitherto been one of the few countries without a minimum age threshold, relying instead on a minimum contribution duration rule. The minimum contribution rule for full pension rights eligibility is now set at 40 years for males and 35 years for females. The pension reform project has essentially been driven by the government’s liberal Economy Minister, Paulo Gaudes and it draws heavily on a much stricter version (c.f. article No. 10118) that failed to pass under the Temer Government in 2017.
The text was approved with 60 votes for and 19 against. Such a large majority was unexpected given the longstanding (two decades) divisions over what direction pension system reforms should be taking. The pension system weighs heavily on the public purse and this is being felt even more keenly as the country makes its way through its fourth year of economic slowdown. Left-wing parliamentarians continue to maintain that the reforms will pose problems for those in the most precarious situations (
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