The estate of Italian social security accounts is at risk and the supplementary pension it is still too little widespread: the alarm is renewed Moneyfarm which, on the eve of the month of financial education, takes stock of the state of the art of the pension system in Italy, in the days in which the text of the Budget Law.
Supplementary pension does not take off
To date the relationship between pension spending and GDP – one of the indices with which the sustainability of public welfare is measured – is equal to 15.6%, a percentage which is estimated to rise to 17% in the space of just 15 years. Blame the demographic crisis, with the number of new pensions paid during 2023 far exceeding that of new births, reaching another negative record (379,339 newborns vs 519,879 new pensioners). In Italy, therefore, we have fewer children, we start working later in a more precarious world of work and we live longer and longer: a combination of factors that threatens the intergenerational pact on which the entire public welfare system is based . Never before has the awareness of the importance of adhering to some form of supplementary pension provision should spread among workers but, according to Moneyfarm’s estimates, to date only one citizen in four aged between 30 and 59 is investing in supplementary pension plans.
Of the over 24.2 million citizens borni between 1965 and 1994equal to 41% of the Italian population, those who have a pension fund are only 26%, while the remaining 74% are employed without a pension fund or unemployed. Of this 26%, a part could also be “silent” taxpayers, i.e. those who do not make payments (almost 28% of members, according to the COVIP annual report for 2023). The use of TFR to fuel supplementary pensions is also limited: from 2007 to 2023, only 22% of all TFR accrued was allocated to pension funds. The rest remained in the companies or in the INPS Treasury Fund, which collects the TFR of companies with more than 50 employees.
Only 1 in 4 Italians invests
The higher rate of participation in social security supplementary benefits are found among men aged between 40 and 59, approximately a third of whom have subscribed to a pension fund (33.5% vs 21% of female peers). On the contrary, the most critical situation is that of young women between 30 and 39 years old: here the rate of participation in supplementary pensions drops to 17%, compared to 27% of their male peers. The reason can be traced back not only to the fact that young female workers participate less in pension funds than men (27% vs 33%), but above all to the fact that there are as many as 17 points of employment rate separating them from their male peers. Overall, in fact, women between 30 and 59 have an average employment rate of approximately 63%, versus 83% of men, a gap which cannot fail to also be reflected in the supplementary pension.
Women’s social security: a not so rosy picture
Far from it the picture of women’s social security is “pink”, especially if we consider that, starting from the age of 50, the employment rate continues to decline grow in age, coming to touch the 48% for women under 55 and 64 years old (compared to 69% of their male peers).
“When it comes to retirement you are planning over twenty years of your life, a period that is certainly not negligible in which three out of four workers will have to base their well-being mainly on basic pension provision, which risks not being sufficient. To date invest in supplementary pension has not yet become a habit for Italian workers, which is why the savings industry is called upon to play an active role of information and consultancy, underlining the importance of acting immediately by exploiting the time factor, advantages such as the tax deductibility of payments and also the opportunity to confer the TFR in a pension fund. Starting to invest in some form of supplementary pension right away allows you to face your future more serenely, without being forced to change your standard of living once you leave from the world of work”, he commented Andrea Rocchetti, Global Head of Investment Advisory at Moneyfarm.
