From our special correspondent in Turin,
In Italy, the tradition is that you don’t stay long at coffee. We drink it standing up, at the bar, a precious little pleasure because fleeting. However, when approaching the retreat in the country, Mattia, Pietro and Giovianni sit down and command macchiato And lungo. There are those subjects which cannot be summed up in one espresso. Early twenties, faces as beautiful as they are proud and talkative, loud laughter and the confidence of young years, the trio is clearly part of the city’s elite. One is studying law, another studying economics, and the last is a borough councillor. In other times, the world would be at their feet and they would gladly be entrusted with the future of the country. But now, even they, although born under a lucky star, do not see how Italy could avoid the wall towards which it is heading.
Since 2011, the Fornero reform has set the retirement age at 67. A figure indexed to life expectancy, which should increase it further to 69 years and 9 months by 2050. An overly optimistic prognosis for Pietro. “There will be no more pensions for our generation, we will have to retire at 75”. Giovanni himself has decided to take advantage of his privileged status and intends to constitute his own savings to face the old days. On the subject, Mattia looks away or stares at her macchiato without answering. He prefers not to think about it and take advantage of today’s promises. One in denial, one pessimist and one determined to compose without: this is what inspires the issue of pensions.
The old peril
In Turin perhaps more than anywhere else in Italy, we strongly believe in the famous “work value”, so dear to our French political debate. The city remains the cradle of Fiat more than of the Renaissance, a major industrial basin with a long working-class past. And, even today, we vibrate more in front of the stock market figures of Kappa, Ferrero and Iveco than in front of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or the marbled buttocks of Michelangelo’s David. But sweat culture or not, the problem remains insoluble. The country presents “a structural demographic fragility”, according to Istat, the transalpine INSEE, in its last annual report. People aged 65 and over represent 23.2% of the population – 3 points more than in France -, and according to the medium scenario, 35% in 2050. Among working people, i.e. elderly over 24, those aged 65 and over account for 37%, a figure that could rise to 74% within thirty years.
“We will have to pay for four retirees when we are active,” sighs Pietro. But more than contributing for wrinkled skin, there is the anger of paying the piper. As if Italy had known decades of unreasonable parties and that today’s youth arrived right at the time of the inevitable hangover. Thirty years ago, the system allowed civil servants to leave after having worked between twenty and twenty-five years. And even only fifteen years, six months and a day of seniority for women with children. The result: 400,000 “retired babies”, as they are called in the country, of which 91,000 retired before the age of 39. These people will have received upon retirement an amount more than three times greater than what they paid in contributions, according to the INPS, the pensions institute.
Demographic suicide
Added to this is the lack of effective public policies. The country breaks its record for the lowest number of births every year. In 2021, the number of toddler fell below 400,000, 31% less than in 2008, and almost half the number of deaths (399,431 births against 746,000 deaths). And for good reason, “the conditions are very harsh for women with children, suddenly they no longer do, and the Italian system is collapsing”, criticizes Giovanni. It took until March 2022 to see the first real family allowance appear in the country. Too little, and above all too late. The trio knows it: there won’t be enough of a succession to support the system.
So here we are with an incongruous scenario for a Frenchman: on the other side of the Alps, the left criticizes the right for wanting to lower the starting age. Between 2019 and 2021, Matteo Salvini (La Lega) had installed the 100 quota. Understand: you can have an early departure once your age + number of years of contribution equals 100, with a minimum of 62 years. So 62 years and 38 years of contribution, 63 years and 37 years to contribute… Then in 2022, place at quota 102, which follows the same logic with two more years and a minimum departure at 64 years old. And now, in 2023, it is quota 103, which (re) allows you to leave at 62, but after 41 years of contribution.
You don’t follow anything? The Italians either, and few venture to estimate their starting age given the number of changes. “We cannot lower the retirement age now, pleads Pietro. Otherwise, the deficit will increase further and it is we who will have to pay. Each time, governments take populist measures that only make things worse for future generations”.
The reality on the ground
Diego, 47, started before his fifteenth birthday as a worker. And hope to be able to benefit of an early departure. “But until then, everything can still change and a new law may appear,” replies the worker, scratching his head, accustomed to the political tribulations of his country. Thirty-two years in the factory have vaccinated him against the moralizing discourses of youth, and his ideals have picked up as much dust and soot as his apron: “You can’t work indefinitely”, even to save the country. “In France, you are right not to let yourself go. Resist and fight! “.
Another big decade to work for Diego, but also to weigh the pros and cons of each purchase at the supermarket. “My wife and I work, but purchasing power and wages are so low in Italy…” Again, the lack of state aid for families is sorely felt. Galleys to end the month which will inevitably have repercussions on his old age: “I cannot save for my retirement when my pension will be shabby. “Difficult to predict how much he will earn, “but it will be insufficient”, especially with his son. Diego has decided to leave Italy once he has finally put down the blouse, to go to Madagascar, to his in-laws. “Not for the exoticism or the temperature, but just to be able to live decently given the prices there”.
Means and major shortcomings
Italy, a country of old people who no longer have enough to support them? Of the 16 million retirees, nearly 32% receive less than 1,000 euros per month. However, the country is giving itself the means, since pensions account for 16% of GDP, the largest total in the OECD – the average of which is only 7.7%. “The pension system is not going to collapse, tempers Alessandro Cavallero, economist at the Bank of Italy. It should quickly be balanced. The 2011 law was not intended to save pensions, but public accounts. We are then in the midst of a public finance crisis, and the law was passed with the argument of avoiding a Greek fate for Italy. A fear that still lurks twelve years later: “Inflation and the importance of reducing the deficit occupy much more minds than the retirement age”, hence a certain unpopularity for the 100 quota.
Alessandro Cavallero smiles. Unlike many Italians, he is certain of the date of his departure. “It’s registered every day on my computer which does the accounts for me. On August 1, 2046, when he will be nearly 70 years old. A certain date that reassures him. Even if: “It’s hard to imagine my state, where the Bank of Italy will be or how work will be in twenty-three years. These are big unknowns. So to reassure himself, he lets time act. What will be will beto speak in another Latin language.
A carelessness that makes bitter Elena, 43 years old and waitress: “Another male privilege. “For her, little uncertainty about her future: a rotten retirement, the fault of years of cuts or part-time work to manage the brats. In a country where inequality towards women is far from being a cliché, the pensions received by women represent 60% of those received by men, according to the INPS. “But between the mentality of the country, the aging of the population, youth unemployment, the ever-increasing retirement age, remember that the concern for women’s retirement is not the priority. In Italy, pensions are such a nest of problems that we no longer know where to start.