Demographicall trend, which includes process of aging and the extendion of life expectancy, is known as a huge challenge for the existing social protection system and its social insurance system. The Republic Slovenia and many other European countries are battling against challenges, because of the demographicall trend, with several measures and pension age rise is one of them. The main discussion in my master’s thesis is the so-called double status of a person, i.e. being a worker or a self-employed person and a pensioner at the same time, which is used to bridge the problem of the disproportionate number between economically active persons and pensioners, known as an inactive population. But to be able to critically defined so-called double status of a person, we need to understand the core principle of the social protection system.
The main core of the social protection system is to protect its members when a social risk occurs, when the income is reduced, lost or increased. Age is one of the social risks, and the main purpose of the social protection system, when a person reaches legally required age, is to provide a pension. But if a pensioner is at the same time receiving an income and a pension, or even vice versa, a worker whose income is not reduced received a pension, there is no need for income replacement, if income is not lost or reduced.
Slovenian legislation is providing pensioners, who wants to continue to work because of various reasons, wide range of legal bases for continuing working, which are not so contradictory to the social protection system.
The discussion of the adequacy of the so-called “double status of a person”, i.e. being a worker or a self-employed person and a pensioner, is high on the agenda. Comparatively in other countries the double status of a person is used, but with restrictions, solutions are more tilting towards the increasing of the minimum pension age.
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