site.btaPublic Social Insurance Expenditures on Older People Equivalent to 6.5% of GDP

120 ECONOMY - OLDER PEOPLE - BENEFITS

Public Social Insurance Expenditures
on Older People Equivalent
to 6.5% of GDP


Sofia, October 2 (BTA) - In 2017, public social insurance expenditures for pensions, short-term disability benefits, vocational rehabilitation, maternity and unemployment benefits paid to people over 64 years of age in Bulgaria amounted to 6.3 billion leva. This was equivalent to 6.5 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, the National Social Security Institute reported on Tuesday.

This oldest-age group absorbed about 60 per cent of the expenditures for pensions and short-term benefits, with 70 per cent of that money going towards pensions and pension supplements.

Every month in 2017, an average of 1.5 million people aged over 64 received a pension and a cash benefit from the public social insurance budget. More than 99 per cent of them were pensioners. The over-64 age group accounted for the largest share (69.6 per cent) of all pensioners and for a far smaller share of short-term benefit recipients: 0.2 per cent of maternity benefit recipients and 3.6 per cent of recipients of short-term unemployment benefits and vocational rehabilitation payments.

There were more over-64 women than men among pensioners and maternity benefit recipients in 2017. Men predominated among the recipients of benefits for short-term disability, vocational rehabilitation and unemployment. This can be explained with the fact that men usually participate in the labour market longer than women. LI/VE
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