The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that the Swiss government was discriminating against men in its pension rules on widowers’ pensions.

In the case of Beeler v Switzerland, the court decided that men whose wives have died only receiving a pension if they have children aged under 18 was discriminatory, as women receive a pension if their husband dies for the rest of their life, no matter the children status.

The ECHR ruled that the idea of the ‘male breadwinner’ was not enough to justify the difference between widows and widowers on receiving a pension.

The decision is expected to cost millions of euros in back payments and the Swiss government will be required to change the law.

The case centred on a Swiss man, Max Beeler, whose wife died in the early 1990s, with Beeler forced to quit his job to care for their two young children, being supported by the widower’s pension.

However, the pension payments stopped once the younger child reached 18, while if Beeler was a woman, they would have received the pension for the rest of their life.

According to the ECHR, the role of women at work had changed and therefore the difference violated Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights in discriminating against men.

Following the decision, Beeler will now receive a pension and other widowers in Switzerland will be able to claim backdated, unpaid benefits.

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