Alexandru-Murad Mironov, Elaborating on a Limit of the Socialist Model. Pensions, Retirees, Retirement Systems in Post-War Romania

Alexandru-Murad Mironov - The National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism, Bucharest
TOME IV 1966 1-2
pp. 291-297
Online publication date: 
11/27/2023
Keywords: 
Labour History; Pension Systems; Socialism; Balkans; N. Ceaușescu; Romanian Pensions Law of 1966
Abstract: 

This article aims to discuss the evolution of the pension system in Romania after WWII, in the context of the social security model present in the rest of the socialist countries. Focusing on the Romanian Pension Law of 1966 that was inspired by Nicolae Ceaușescu, the new Communist leader who had been imposed only one year earlier as the general secretary of the Communist Party, one can conclude that the social regulation was indeed very modern. It introduced in the history of the Eastern European social security systems an idea which, to these days, continues to rule the debate: what the fair ratio between the principle of solidarity and the principle of contribution should be? However, this reform opened the gate for a revision of the principle of solidarity, that will further deepen the tendency to privilege the financial efficiency, a trend which had a negative impact on the retirees’ standard of living, and totally discriminated the peasantry.

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