Ukraine raises retirement age for women to 60

The Ukrainian parliament adopted on Thursday night a pension reform which envisions a gradual increase of the retirement age for women from 55 to 60 years. The new law will come into force on January 1, 2012. The pension age for women will be raised by six months every year for the next 10 years. The same document stipulates that the retirement age for male civil servants will increase from 60 to 62 years. The Ukrainian government has to conduct a number of drastic and unpopular reforms in order to qualify for future payments from a $15.2 billion loan program with the International Monetary Fund. The IMF approved a two-and-a-half year loan program for Ukraine in July last year, disbursing $1.9 billion immediately, but said each consecutive installment would be released only after concrete steps have been made by the Ukrainian government.