Costa Rica’s public health and social security system, known as CCSS, will discuss the possibility of extending survivors’ pensions to same-sex couples in the coming weeks, the daily La Nacion reports.

CCSS in May 2014 made a landmark decision to grant gay couples health insurance on the same terms as heterosexual couples, a move that was praised by the United Nations.

“This is the next natural step, after giving [same-sex couples] health insurance: to recognize their right to a pension,” spokesperson José Luis Loría Chaves told La Nacion.

In its May 2014 decision to provide same-sex couples equal terms for health insurance, the CCSS estimated that some 3,000 couples would opt for the benefit. But one year later, only 135 couples had opted for the coverage.  The 2014 decision extended health care benefits to the gay partner of a working person, as had always been the case for straight couples that live together in a “free union” or are married.

In the case of survivors’ pensions, CCSS estimates that 287 gay people would take advantage of survivors’ pensions by the year 2020 if it is decided to extend such pensions to same-sex couples.  CCSS estimates that it would spend about US $3 million per year by 2020 on such benefits.

“There is no doubt that Costa Rican society has been gradually accepting the reality of same-sex couples.  Pensions could prove to be more important to many people than [health insurance]  […] we are paying the same percentage to social security and there is no moral or legal basis to exclusive us of that right,” Marco Castillo of the Diversity Movement told La Nacion, adding that a positive decision by the CCSS would be a decision in favor of human rights.

A decision on the matter could come in the next several weeks, according to a spokesperson for the CCSS.