Accessing a contributory retirement pension does not depend solely on having paid contributions for 15 years. Social Security also requires compliance with a lesser-known requirement that, until now, has left out many workers with irregular employment histories, periods of unemployment, or interruptions due to family care. However, regulations have introduced a modification that relaxes this requirement and facilitates access to retirement for certain individuals.
The change affects what is known as specific eligibility, which is the obligation to prove part of the contributions within a specific period before applying for the pension. This measure seeks to adapt to increasingly discontinuous career paths and prevent those who have contributed the required minimum from losing the right to the benefit simply for not meeting that temporal requirement.
What changes in the contribution requirement
To access a contributory retirement pension, it is necessary to have contributed for at least 15 years throughout a working life. However, legislation also requires that two of those years fall within the 15 years immediately preceding the moment of applying for retirement. This is known as specific eligibility.
The regulatory modification relaxes the way this requirement is proven for certain situations, especially in employment histories with interruptions, so as not to penalise those who stopped working in the years prior to reaching retirement age.
