Women seeking to enjoy retirement benefits in Argentina have to meet two conditions: they must be at least 60 years old and have 30 years of service under their belt with contributions to the social security system. Now the National Executive has issued a new Executive Order (No. 475/2021). Starting July 19, 2021, “biological women with children and other persons of childbearing capacity” will be able to request that the time they dedicated to childcare be computed as time of service for the purpose of retirement. This means that time spent raising their children may count as time worked to reach that 30-year minimum.
Per the new order, these individuals may compute (i) 1 year of service for each child born alive, and (ii) 2 years of service for each adopted child. In addition, they may compute 1 extra year of service for each disabled child and 2 extra years if they have received child-benefit welfare for at least 12 months. The order also provides that paid and unpaid leave for maternity may count as time worked to reach that 30-year minimum.
The Ministry of Labor clarified that the recognition of services may be requested by more than one woman and/or pregnant person for the same child born alive or adopted.
Although this rule is recent and there is still no case law in its regard, in principle, employers would be able to compute these periods of time to request workers to file for retirement and to terminate their employment without compensation. In Argentina, workers are currently protected from certain kinds of employment terminations as a result of a series of employment protection measures issued to ease the effects of the pandemic. Termination for retirement would not be one of those protected terminations. So, employers may still be able to compel workers to file for retirement.