Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said Poland should end the different retirement age for women and men, reopening a debate over a rule that now gives pension rights at 65 lat for men and 60 lat for women. In a July edition of WP's Tłit, she said the ages should "powinien się gdzieś spotkać".
Her proposal would leave the current split at the center of the dispute: whether the minimum retirement age should be equalized, and if so, for whom. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said only childless women should work as long as men, which makes her version narrower than a straight equalization.
July WP and Tłit
Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, who is minister funduszy i polityki regionalnej, used the July WP program to argue that the sex-based difference should end. The immediate effect was a new public argument over the retirement age, not a change in the law.
The discussion matters because the existing pension system in Poland already contains a mechanism that transfers retirement savings from men to women when pensions are calculated. That mechanism would still operate even if the minimum retirement age were made the same, so the dispute is not only about when people stop working but also about how pensions are later computed.
Lewica response
Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk rejected the idea as "skandaliczny i okrutny". She also said that "dopóki Lewica współtworzy rząd, dopóty podwyżek minimalnego wieku emerytalnego nie będzie" and added that the only change she could support would be equalizing the retirement age downward to 60.
Katarzyna Kotula took a different line, saying the division of unpaid domestic work between men and women has not yet equalized enough to discuss the minimum retirement age on the same terms. She called it a structural problem of unpaid care work carried mainly by women in Poland, which is the reason she gives for resisting equalization now.
Anna Maria Żukowska on Radio Zet
Anna Maria Żukowska said on Radio Zet that the minimum retirement age for women and men should be equalized by raising it for one sex and lowering it for the other. That puts her closer to a full equalization than Pełczyńska-Nałęcz's version, which keeps an earlier path for mothers.
For readers affected by the current rule, the key point is simple: men still reach pension rights at 65 lat, women at 60 lat, and no adopted change has been set out in the facts here. What exact formula would replace that system has not been answered, so the political fight now sits over the direction of reform rather than a finished plan.
