Participants

Dr.. Sami Miari – Lecturer at Tel Aviv University and Oxford University – and Director General of the Arab Economic Forum. Dr.. Maha Karkabi Sabbah – Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University and Director of the Research Unit at the Arab Economic Forum.

The Introduction

The retirement age… a term that haunts the minds of workers and employees throughout their years of work and service to society, due to the prevailing stereotype in our societies about the retirement age, as it tells them that they have become a burden on society, and a burden on its shoulders. It draws in their imagination a nightmare of low income at a time when they are most in need of care and support when they leave their work and return home unproductive. In order to rid employees of this gloomy feeling, civilized systems seek improvements in the retirement law, and reforms that bear some loyalty to those who spent their lives in the midst of work, production, and community service, especially in light of the increase in life expectancy for women and men alike. The new settlement law includes a proposal to gradually raise the retirement age for women from 62 to 65 over the next 13 years, and in the longer term – the law includes a proposal to link the retirement age (also for men) to life expectancy. In recent years, the issue of raising the retirement age in general and the retirement age for women in particular has been promoted, against the background of the increase in life expectancy for both women and men, the relatively early exit of women compared to men, and the constant discussion of the economic dependencies of early exit from the labor market on retirement savings and payments of various allowances. The last time the retirement age was updated was in 2003 when the retirement age for men was raised from 65 to 67 and the retirement age for women from 60 to 62.