The survivors’ pension is determined based on the pension that the deceased received or would have received at the time of death if he or she had become incapable of work on the day of his or her death. Survivors’ pension is determined based on the number of beneficiaries, and it may amount to no more than the earnings-based pension of the deceased.

The amount of the surviving spouse’s pension is affected by the number of beneficiaries among who the survivors’ pension must be divided. However, whether the surviving spouse also receives the pension does not affect the child pension amount. If the surviving spouse is the sole beneficiary, the surviving spouse’s pension amounts to half of the deceased’s pension. If there are children in the family, the survivors’ pension is divided among the surviving spouse and the children.

The total amounts of child’s pensions are presented in the table below. If there are several children, each child receives his or her own equal share of the survivors’ pension. The table presents the children’s ratio of the survivors’ pension, regardless of whether the surviving spouse does not receive survivors’ pension.

Survivors’ pension table

Number of children	No children	One child	Two children	Three children	Four or more children
Proportion of surviving spouse’s pension of the deceased’s pension	6/12	6/12	5/12	3/12	2/12
Proportion of child pensions of the deceased’s pension	-	4/12	7/12	9/12	10/12
Total	6/ 12	10/ 12	12/ 12	12/ 12	12/ 12

Example

The mother of a family dies and is survived by her spouse and two minor children. The deceased’s pension would have been 2,160 euros/month. Therefore, the surviving spouse’s pension amounts to 900 euros/month and the pension for each child to 630 euros/month. The surviving spouse’s pension is reduced only after the youngest family member reaches 18 years. We explain more about this in reducing the surviving spouse’s pension.