The mirror in which we are forced to look at ourselves and which awaits my generation after the business trip reveals a painful truth: six out of ten Spaniards over the age of 50 do not have enough savings to face retirement. The causes are rife like the scars life has left on those bodies and those minds: chronically low wages, crippling crises, job insecurity, interruptions to care that penalize women above all else (in short, if day care costs you what they pay you in salary, you might as well stop working), and insatiable housing that eats up income and implied promises. The idea that if you work honestly, the country will return to you some of what you gave.
I don’t think the statement that they were irresponsible and didn’t plan their lives which were always on the brink would come into play on this occasion. No one here, almost no one, lived beyond their means. And those who have done so will not face such problems in their savings account.
The issue of retirement – which should be a place of rest, redress and freedom – It has become a demographic, economic and political battleground. Generations too. At the same time that public discourse about pensions oscillates between fatalism and technocracy, and formulas, ages and coefficients are debated, we avoid looking at what is really at stake: the dignity of old age.
Six out of ten Spaniards over the age of 50 do not have enough savings to meet retirement
The news also reveals an always uncomfortable national taboo: the frailty of the elderly. If we want a livable future, The conversation cannot focus only on the amount of pensionsBut with the kind of life we ​​guarantee before arriving at it. If we accept that retirement is a luxury, then we will accept that dignity is also a luxury. And vultures, except around carrion, are never too far from money…