Polish President Andrzej Duda has asked the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) to investigate how many people would be encompassed by the proposed reform as well as the costs it would incur on the Polish budget.

The Polish presidential election will take place in the spring of 2020. Candidates are now working on campaign promises that could secure them enough votes to win the presidency. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, incumbent president Andrzej Duda wants to grant women the option of retiring after 35 years of work, while men would acquire the same right after 40 years in the labour market.

The ruling Law and Justice Party promised during the parliamentary election campaign in 2015 to reduce the retirement age to 65 for men and 60 for women after it had been hiked up to 67 for both men and women in 2012 by the previous government coalition, made up of the Civic Platform Party and the Polish Peoples’ Party.

The Law and Justice Party quickly fulfilled its campaign promise after winning the election but now it seems President Duda wants to take the reform a step further. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, the Social Insurance Institution is now crunching the numbers and will deliver the result on the president’s desk at the beginning of January.

According to estimates by the Pension Institute, the project would cost the pension system an additional PLN 11 bln per year. Social insurance expert Łukasz Wacławik adds that the project would result in “starvation pensions” for those who decide to retire earlier.

The president is expected to make a decision on the feasibility of the reform after receiving the exact numbers by the Social Insurance Institution in January.