The subsidy for people over 52 years of age is one of the most beneficial aid from the SEPE (State Public Employment Service) for unemployed people of that age who have exhausted all the unemployment to which they were entitled and meet the rest of the requirements such as being registered as a job seeker. Among the benefits is payment indefinitely until retirement age or pension contributions of 125% of the minimum base.
The General Law of Social Security explains in its article 280 (You can check it out at this link), which, among other requirements, requires having contributed for at least six years for unemployment and, in certain cases, having remained uninterruptedly registered as a job seeker until the application. The standard adds that this continuity is only considered fulfilled when the interruptions do not exceed 90 calendar days, except for work periods.
Despite what the norm says, the courts have once again recalled that this requirement cannot always be interpreted exhaustively. This is what has happened in Galicia, where the Superior Court of Xustiza of Galicia has ruled in favor of a woman to receive the subsidy for those over 52 years of age after the SEPE denied it for not having been registered as a job seeker for almost ten years.
As explained by the Judiciary in its Web pagethe affected person requested aid in October 2023, but the SEPE understood that this long period without registration, between 1998 and 2008, prevented the requirement to be accredited to access the subsidy. Faced with this thesis, the TSXG endorsed applying the well-known parenthesis doctrine.
The Chamber recalls that this doctrine allows certain periods of inactivity to be excluded from the calculation when they do not prove a real disengagement from the labor market. And in this case he appreciates just that. In the resolution, the court highlights that “the beneficiary has proven more than 30 years linked to the labor market, with an interruption of almost 10 years which, as demonstrated by her previous and subsequent behavior, is not a definitive abandonment, but rather a temporary separation conditioned by the care needs of her two daughters.”
In fact, the ruling highlights that, once this stage of care ended, the worker re-registered as a job seeker in 2008 and maintained that registration uninterruptedly for more than fifteen years, without being able to re-enter the workforce for reasons beyond her control.
Parenting does not mean giving up work
The most relevant part of the ruling is that the TSXG applies this doctrine with a gender perspective. The magistrates explain that this interpretation “must lead to considering the time dedicated to caring for the two daughters as one of those circumstances accrediting the maintenance of the animus laborandi and/or the absence of desire to abandon the labor market.”
The court goes one step further and warns that, if this is not done, “an adverse impact may be produced on women, who are mostly caregivers within couples and within families, causing indirect discrimination.”
With this interpretation, the Court concludes that, once this period for caring for daughters was eliminated, the applicant did meet both the generic and specific deficiency, in addition to the unemployment contribution requirement required by the General Social Security Law to access the subsidy for those over 52 years of age.