The recent retirement reforms in Portugal have not changed the redistributive nature of the social model since distribution was essentially maintained as the financial technique. The technique of capitalization was introduced in the margin; it concerns people whose wages are superior to a certain sum and who can leave the mandatory system to go to private schemes.
This reform is built upon pension parameters. It is intended to essentially benefit public finances; indeed, the increase in the amount of wages necessary in order to determine the value of the pension and the index for re-evaluating the planned wages means that the social security accounts will improve in the medium and long term. However, from a social standpoint, people will suffer from a decreased standard of living because of the lower replacement rate of wages by pensions.