Survey of Other Countries shows Belize is the Only One with Early Pension
Dr. Philip Castillo
A quick look at the list of beneficiaries of the government’s pension scheme shows that in Belize, public servants retire at age fifty-five or collect a gratuity after fifteen years of service. Regular soldiers of the B.D.F. retire after twenty-seven years of service and the highest officers also retire at age fifty-five. Parliamentarians receive pension after serving eight years or two parliamentary terms, which don’t have to be consecutive. In sharp contrast to five other countries, including the U.S., however, it shows that only Belize has the retirement age for public officers at fifty-five.
Dr. Philip Castillo, Lecturer, U.B.
“In Jamaica, females retire at sixty, and males go up to sixty-five years old. In Barbados, you retire at sixty-seven. There’s an asterisk by Barbados; I’ll come to that shortly. In Trinidad, it’s at age sixty, you could retire early at age sixty-two, but if you wait until sixty-seven, you get your full retirement package. In the Cayman Islands, it’s sixty-five years old. Now focusing on Barbados, there is no double-dipping. You retire at age sixty-seven and there is no double-dipping. What that means is that, say in Belize, [as] a typical public officer, you get your government pension but at age sixty, you’re also entitled to your social security pension because as long as you’re employed in this country, it’s mandatory that you pay social security. Now in Barbados it’s called the N.I.S., so what happens for public servants is that you cannot get both your N.I.S. and your government pension. You get what is considered the higher of the two. You get what is calculated to be the higher of the two, but you do not get both. And notice, you get it at age sixty-seven.”
Dr. Castillo shared that the current retirement age of fifty-five originated in Colonial times when the administrators who came from England retired at that age so they could return home to enjoy their pension in their home country. He explained that when countries in this region got their independence and life spans increased, several countries pushed their government’s retirement age from fifty-five, with the exception of Belize.
