Recent cases and the future of Directive 79/7 on equal treatment for men and women in social security: How to realise its full potential

Abstract

Directive 79/7 on equal treatment for men and women in statutory social security has proven to be more relevant than ever, forty years after its adoption. Two new landmark judgments were handed down in 2019. The first (Villar Láiz) concerned the calculation of the retirement pensions of part-time workers and the ruling marks an important milestone in the long road towards delivering better social protection for these workers, the majority of whom are women. The second (WA) dealt with a pension supplement granted to female pensioners with two or more children (to the exclusion of men) and analysed, for the first time, whether affirmative action is permitted in the field of statutory social security. This article describes and makes some comments on the 2019 judgments. It also reflects, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Directive 79/7, on how its full potential can be realised. In particular, it proposes the generalisation of the pro rata temporis principle by removing affiliation thresholds for part-time workers, extending the scope of the Directive to all carers and carers’ allowances following the ruling in Drake, invalidating temporary derogations of the Directive in line with Test-Achats, and using Article 157(3) TFEU as a legal basis so that the Directive can be amended by qualified majority.