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Thu Aug 20 01:26PM
The following is from Around The World blog, at:
http://uk.news.yahoo.../article/13705/
Quote
Marrying a woman half his age may be a fantasy for many a middle-aged man, but in Brazil it's a growing reality that is proving something of a headache for the government.
This week, the country's pensions agency released a report showing that many men in their 60s have spouses in their 30s. (Divorce leads to remarriage for two out of three men -- and the preference is for a much, much younger replacement.)
Now the fact that there's any number of young Brazilian women more than willing to enter into such unions will no doubt stir over-the-hill male Brits or other Europeans to daydream about buying a ticket to Rio. And just as likely irritate women of a certain age both in Brazil and in Britain who find that their own pool of possible suitors is depressingly small.
That's one issue that I'll leave to you to thrash out.
But in Brazil the flipside of this pairing of near-geriatric hubbies with nubile wives is having serious consequences on the government's wallet.
You see, as the older Brazilian men are dying off (exhausted from keeping up with their fresh-faced better halves maybe?) they are leaving behind a growing number of healthy not-so-old widows... who keep receiving their pensions.
That means, according to Paulo Tafner of the Brazil's National Social Security Institute, that fully 94 percent of pensions are now being paid to women, and the whole system is becoming unsustainable.
"The social security system was planned so that the wife receives her husband's pension for only 15 years or so. With growing life expectancy and remarriages with much younger women, benefits today stretch out over 35 years," he told AFP.
Here you have to note that, in Brazil, the husband's pension is often equal to fully what he was earning as a salary before retirement. So you can see how so many women here continue to keep themselves in the style to which they had become accustomed even after their husband's death.
Tafner said the phenomenon of the older-man marrying the much-younger women is commonly called the "Viagra effect." But in reality, it started in the 1970s -- well before that little blue pill which has encouraged so many old men to power on well after their batteries should be fading.
Whatever you may think about the trend, one thing is sure: Brazil has probably one of the best-preserved populations of women pensioners in the world.
In this blog, reporters and editors for global news wire AFP blog about the news they report and the challenges they face covering events from Baghdad to Beijing, the White House to Darfur. Marc Burleigh is AFP Latin America correspondent, based in Sao Paolo.
This week, the country's pensions agency released a report showing that many men in their 60s have spouses in their 30s. (Divorce leads to remarriage for two out of three men -- and the preference is for a much, much younger replacement.)
Now the fact that there's any number of young Brazilian women more than willing to enter into such unions will no doubt stir over-the-hill male Brits or other Europeans to daydream about buying a ticket to Rio. And just as likely irritate women of a certain age both in Brazil and in Britain who find that their own pool of possible suitors is depressingly small.
That's one issue that I'll leave to you to thrash out.
But in Brazil the flipside of this pairing of near-geriatric hubbies with nubile wives is having serious consequences on the government's wallet.
You see, as the older Brazilian men are dying off (exhausted from keeping up with their fresh-faced better halves maybe?) they are leaving behind a growing number of healthy not-so-old widows... who keep receiving their pensions.
That means, according to Paulo Tafner of the Brazil's National Social Security Institute, that fully 94 percent of pensions are now being paid to women, and the whole system is becoming unsustainable.
"The social security system was planned so that the wife receives her husband's pension for only 15 years or so. With growing life expectancy and remarriages with much younger women, benefits today stretch out over 35 years," he told AFP.
Here you have to note that, in Brazil, the husband's pension is often equal to fully what he was earning as a salary before retirement. So you can see how so many women here continue to keep themselves in the style to which they had become accustomed even after their husband's death.
Tafner said the phenomenon of the older-man marrying the much-younger women is commonly called the "Viagra effect." But in reality, it started in the 1970s -- well before that little blue pill which has encouraged so many old men to power on well after their batteries should be fading.
Whatever you may think about the trend, one thing is sure: Brazil has probably one of the best-preserved populations of women pensioners in the world.
In this blog, reporters and editors for global news wire AFP blog about the news they report and the challenges they face covering events from Baghdad to Beijing, the White House to Darfur. Marc Burleigh is AFP Latin America correspondent, based in Sao Paolo.
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