Survey reveals retired women’s social security experiences

AMMAN — A public opinion poll revealed that 49.6 per cent of its female respondents are the primary breadwinners in their family.

Following Jo Womenomics’ launch of its position paper on Social Security Law’s “discriminatory provisions against women”, through the Feminist Integral Centre for Research and Innovation (FICRI), a project funded by the Dutch embassy, its opinion poll highlighted information about women who retired early, women benefiting from old-age pension and women who withdrew their social security benefits.

The opinion poll targeted retired Jordanian women from all 12 governorates, of which 51.4 per cent were over 50 years old, and who refer to the general attitudes and opinions of a large population in the Kingdom.

The opinion poll aims to elaborate on details regarding the Social Security Law, gauge women’s opinions and knowledge about various topics, such as the withdrawal of social security benefits, maternity insurance, early retirement and the inheritance of pension, with the help of data from the Social Security Corporation.

Seeking to achieve comprehensive protection and reinforce women’s economic and social roles, 607 retired women (who receive old-age pension, withdrew their social security benefits or retired early) out of 291,571 retired women in Jordan, were interviewed over the phone, taking into consideration the confidence level, margin of error, population size and data analysis level.

Around 30 per cent of the respondents identified that they provide for the family together with their husbands, according to the poll, which showed that most respondents, 68.2 per cent, are from Amman, and nearly 60 per cent of them had a social security subscription for over 15 years.

According to the opinion poll, 94.6 per cent of women believe that a working woman with a social security subscription is a breadwinner with her spouse and shares with him household expenses.

With regard to withdrawing social security benefits, it showed that the reasons why women withdrew their subscriptions included unfortunate material situation and lack of employment opportunities by 41.9 per cent, and due to COVID-related difficult circumstances by 19.4 per cent.

The report said that “51 per cent of women who withdrew their subscriptions, reapplied later”.

Furthermore, the poll revealed that 64.7 per cent of the respondents did not know that a deceased woman’s salary cannot be inherited by her spouse unless he is fully disabled, while 83.2 per cent knew that the salary of a deceased husband can be inherited by his wife either way.

In conclusion, the poll observed that “a large proportion of respondents want to amend subjects related to salary inheritance, in a way that enables a widow to benefit from her deceased husband’s salary even if she remarries, so that she is able to provide for his children”.