Was the deficit increased due to shorter working hours and retirement opportunities?
The early retirement system affected us from both sides. The balance between what we call actives, those who work and pay premiums, and passives, those who are retired and receive a pension from the system, was disrupted. The length of time for those who receive a retirement pension was increased to an unprecedented extent. There needs to be a balance between the amount of money insured people give to the system and take from the system. Nowhere in the world is it possible for a person to give one and then take two or even three. But that is kind of what happened in Turkey. The first intervention that ruined the social security balance in Turkey had to do with the age limit. The age limit for retirement suddenly went down from around 60 to 38 for women and 43 for men. When you reduce the retirement age limit to 20 years earlier, it means less input into the system but more payments. But didn’t the reforms raise the retirement age too much? We needed interventions that were compatible w
