Colombia Pension Age Debate Grows as Supreme Court Chief Backs Equal Ages
Economy · Colombia
Key Facts
- —What happened Iván Mauricio Lenis, who presides over Colombia’s Supreme Court, said women should retire at the same age as men.
- —The rule today The Colombia pension age is 57 for women and 62 for men, according to the state administrator Colpensiones.
- —The catch Lenis spoke in a radio interview, not in a court ruling, and he has no power to change the law.
- —The argument behind it Colombian women outlive men by about five and a half years, United Nations estimates for 2024 show.
- —What comes next Colombia’s 2024 pension law takes effect on 1 April 2027 and leaves both retirement ages untouched.
The Colombia pension age gap lets women draw a state pension five years before men, although they live longer. The country’s most senior judge says the arrangement deserves a hard look.
The Colombia pension age debate reopened on Tuesday 29 September 2026, and it started from the bench. The head of the country’s highest ordinary court said women should retire at the same age as men.
Iván Mauricio Lenis Gómez presides over the Corte Suprema de Justicia. That court is the final word on civil, criminal and labour cases.
A separate Constitutional Court decides whether laws themselves are valid. It is that court, not Lenis’s, that has been ruling on the pension reform.
He spoke in an interview with Mañanas Blu, the morning programme of the Bogotá broadcaster Blu Radio. “To advance equity, women should have the same age to retire as men,” he said.
That is an invitation to a public argument, not a decision. Congress sets retirement ages in Colombia, and the Corte Suprema has issued no ruling on the subject.
What the rules say today
Colpensiones, the state pension administrator, sets out what an old-age pension requires. A woman must be 57, a man must be 62, and both must have paid in for a minimum number of weeks.
That minimum is 1,300 weeks for men, which Colpensiones puts at about 26 years. For women it is 1,250 weeks in 2026, and it falls by another 25 every January until 2036.
The Constitutional Court ordered that decline in 2023, in a judgment numbered C-197. The 2024 pension law carries a matching schedule, ending at 1,000 weeks in 2036.
Why women retire earlier in the first place
The five-year gap is deliberate, and Colombian law still explains it the same way. It treats unpaid work at home as work, because that work cuts the years a woman can spend in a paid job.
The 2024 reform keeps the idea alive. A mother may cut 50 weeks from her requirement for each child, for up to three children.
The law calls that a recognition of unpaid labour. It applies only once other routes are exhausted, and it cannot take a woman below 850 weeks.
Lenis made the equity case in the opposite direction. Shorter contribution records leave many women with smaller monthly payments, he told the programme.
The longevity argument
The demographic numbers cut the same way. United Nations estimates published by the World Bank put male life expectancy at birth at 75.2 years in 2024.
For women the figure was 80.6 years. So women may stop work five years earlier and then live about five and a half years longer.
“As life expectancy rises, the time the system should pay the pension rises,” Lenis said. “And that possibility should be thought about.”
The money argument, and its limit
Lenis was blunter about financing. “It is increasingly clear the system will not be financed by the contributions workers inside it are making,” he said.
The reason sits in the labour market. DANE put informal employment at 54.7% of all employed people in the March to May 2026 quarter.
A year earlier the figure was 55.9%, so it is falling slowly. Informal workers rarely pay in every month, and many never accumulate enough weeks to qualify.
Lenis put informality at 55% nationally and 63% in Cúcuta, the border city where he gave those figures. He argued that contributions should attach to the citizen rather than to a conventional job.
The birth rate points the same way. DANE registered 433,678 births in 2025, down 4.5% on the year before, which means fewer contributors later.
That informality is also the limit of the idea. A later retirement age does nothing for workers who never build enough weeks to qualify.
Why change would still be slow
Congress is already busy with the last pension law. The Constitutional Court upheld most of Ley 2381 de 2024 on 25 August 2026, in judgment C-264.
It sent nine articles, or parts of articles, back to the Chamber of Representatives for a proper debate. The rest of the new system begins on 1 April 2027.
Those returned articles have no fixed start date, the Court said in the same judgment. It also froze other legal challenges to the law until 1 April 2027.
Colombia has moved its ages before, but slowly. Ley 100 de 1993 set them at 55 and 60, then scheduled the rise to 57 and 62 for January 2014.
Acquired rights are the second brake. Women with 750 weeks, and men with 900, when the new system begins stay under the 1993 law.
The 2024 law promises in its own text to respect acquired rights and legitimate expectations. Any future change to the ages would have to be built around people already close to the line.
Lenis accepted the politics of it. He said the idea carries a political cost and needs an honest conversation with the public.
What it means if you live or work in Colombia
Nothing about the Colombia pension age changes this week. It is still 57 and 62, and the weeks are still 1,250 for women and 1,300 for men.
Foreign residents who pay into the Colombian system face the same ages and the same week counts as Colombians. The week count is the part that moves, and only for women.
Lenis named no new age and set no timetable for one. He asked for a conversation, and in Colombia that conversation has to end in Congress.
The five-year gap has outlived every pension fight since 1993, even as both ages rose. It now has one more to outlive.
More: Colombia coverage, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Colombia’s Supreme Court rule that women must retire later?
No. Iván Mauricio Lenis Gómez, the president of the Corte Suprema de Justicia, made the suggestion in a radio interview with Mañanas Blu on 29 September 2026. The Corte Suprema is Colombia’s highest court for civil, criminal and labour cases, and it does not set pension parameters. Only Congress can change the retirement age. Lenis named no new age and proposed no timetable.
What are the retirement rules in Colombia right now?
A woman may claim a state old-age pension at 57 and a man at 62, according to Colpensiones, the state pension administrator. Men need 1,300 weeks of contributions, which Colpensiones puts at about 26 years. Women need 1,250 weeks in 2026, under a schedule ordered by the Constitutional Court in judgment C-197 of 2023 and repeated in the 2024 pension law. That figure falls towards 1,000 weeks by 2036.
Why do Colombian women retire five years before men?
The gap exists to recognise unpaid work at home, which interrupts the years women can spend in paid employment. Colombian law still uses that reasoning. The 2024 reform lets a mother reduce her required weeks by 50 for each child, for up to three children, with a floor of 850 weeks. Those who want one shared age point to longevity instead: United Nations estimates for 2024 put life expectancy at birth at 80.6 years for women and 75.2 for men.
When does the 2024 pension reform actually start?
The Constitutional Court upheld most of Ley 2381 de 2024 on 25 August 2026 in judgment C-264, and set 1 April 2027 as the date the approved provisions take effect. Nine articles, or parts of articles, went back to the Chamber of Representatives to be debated properly, and the Court said those have no fixed start date. Other challenges to the law are frozen until 1 April 2027.
Sources: Blu Radio on the Mañanas Blu interview, the Corte Suprema de Justicia on the election of its president, Colpensiones on the requirements for an old-age pension, Constitutional Court judgment C-197 of 2023 on contribution weeks for women, Constitutional Court judgment C-264 of 2026 on the 2024 pension law, Constitutional Court order 841 of 2025 suspending the law, the text of Ley 2381 de 2024, the Health Ministry guide to the reform, United Nations life-expectancy estimates for Colombia, published by the World Bank, DANE on informal employment, DANE vital statistics for 2025
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