Measure To Compensate (2024)

The Constitutional Court of Colombia has made an importantchange in its ruling regarding the required amount of theircontribution weeks for women in order to get recognition of the oldage pension. Women regularly face unfavourable conditions in theworkplace that hinder them from making the whole amount ofcontributions and consolidating their right to recognition of theminimum pension guarantee in the Individual Savings with SolidarityScheme (Pension Private Funds).

This section of the law was questioned as a regulation thatviolated the fundamental rights to equality since it providedidentical treatment between men and women and did not incorporategender focus that would recognise the discrimination that womenhave faced in the labour and pension market and to social securitysince the absence of a measure with a differential and gender focusput at risk the possibility that women would be able to obtain apension allowance that would guarantee the satisfaction of theirbasic needs in old age.

The Court emphasised that the beneficiaries of the minimumpension guarantee are low-income members of the private funds whodo not have enough contribution money in their individual savingsaccount to finance a pension amounting to at least one minimumwage. In this sense, it pointed out that bydefactolimiting the access to the minimum pensionguarantee, the law in question put at risk the minimum vital needsof low-income women.

However, the Constitutional Court decided to defer the effectsof the decision until 31 December 2025 for two main reasons:

(i) The immediate declaration of unenforceability and theconsequent reduction in the number of weeks of contributionsrequired of women would increase the number of beneficiaries andreduce the contributions of female members, which would deplete theMinimum Pension Guarantee Fund way earlier than was budgetedfor.

(ii) The Constitution does not require that the historicaldiscrimination that women have suffered in the labour market mustnecessarily be remedied by a reduction in the minimum number ofweeks of contributions, so it is constitutionally admissible forthe legislator to maintain identical treatment in terms of thedensity of weeks to compensate for the discrimination, to adoptother affirmative measures to guarantee equality and to ensure thatwomen affiliated with private funds have the same materialopportunities to make contributions to the pension system.

The Corporation emphasised that, in the event of inaction byCongress, the minimum number of weeks required for women to accessthe old-age pension in the Public Fund would also be graduallyreduced to 1,000.

Key Action Points for Human Resources and In-House Counsel

In accordance with the new position of the Constitutional Court,this decision is one step forward against sex discrimination. It isa position of the Court to try to reduce the gap for women who arenot able to get recognition of their old age pension. Nevertheless,now it is a duty of Congress to establish the regulation and therules for gradually reducing the contribution weeks for women. Wesuggest that employers be aware of the new regulations in thismatter.

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circ*mstances.

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