“The growing precariousness and job discontinuity, associated with low wages and lack of social guarantees, particularly affects young people and women, making their path to entry into the labor market, contractual stability and wage levels more difficult”. He affirmed it, on the occasion of the presentation of the research “Contributory situation and pension future of young people”made by National Youth Council together with EU.RES, the President of the CNG, Maria Cristina Pisaniwho expressed “the need for a more in-depth debate on social security issues, which also takes into account the needs of the younger generations”.

“All of this has a significant impact on the future pension situation of young people”, Pisani underlined. “The demographic question and the transition to the system ‘pure contributory’ further threaten the sustainability of our pension system. This trend forces citizens to work longer to receive less generous pensions than in previous generations.”

According to the EURES analysis, continues the President of the National Youth Council “the combination of job discontinuity and low wages for workers under 35 will lead to a retirement from work only for old age, with pension amounts close to that of a social allowance. A situation that will be socially unsustainable”.

These are the original projections on the value of pensions expected in the coming decades for i employees who are under 35 today: in fact, if the stay lasted until 2057, thus determining a retirement almost at the age of 74 (73.6), the amount of the pension allowance would amount to 1,577 gross euros per month (1,099 net of Irpef), a value which is equivalent to 3.1 times the amount of the social allowance.

For workers with a VAT number (always with a stay until 2057 and a retirement at 73.6 years) the amount of the pension allowance would amount to 1,650 euros gross per month (1,128 net of Irpef), a value which is equivalent to 3.3 times the amount of the social allowance.

“An estimate – adds Alessandro Fortuna, Councilor of the Presidency with responsibility for employment and social security policies – which highlights the serious distortion of the pension system, as currently defined, which not only projects income inequalities over time, renouncing any redistributive dimension, but is even punitive towards workers with lower incomes, forced to remain in the labor market ( beyond contributory years) for three or even six years longer than their peers with higher incomes and greater job stability”.

According to the latest Eurostat report, pension expenditure in Italy represents 17.6% of GDP in 2020the second highest in the EU27 after Greece, and much higher than the EU27 average of 13.6%.

“Even the OECD estimates confirm the trend of increasing the retirement age which will increasingly lengthen the working life of young people”Pisani added. “For young people who entered the world of work in 2020 at the age of 22 in Italy, it is expected that they will only reach retirement age at 71, the highest figure among the main European countries”.

Pisani also highlighted the pay gap between young workers and the general working population: “In 2021, workers under 25 received an average of 8,824 euros, 40% of the total average wage, while workers between 25 and 34 received an average of 17,076 euros, 78% of the average wage. Furthermore, a substantial pay gap occurs between women and young working men, with a gap that widens over time”. The demonstration, in essence, of how the purely contributory model is sustainable only if inserted in a job market based on wage stability and growth. A variable which, on the other hand, is denied by the data according to which, in 2021, more than one worker under 35 out of four received an annual salary of less than €5,000 and by the reduction, between 2011 and 2021, of the share of young people with a permanent contract increased from 70.3% to 60.1%. At the same time, again in the space of ten years, the incidence of fixed-term contracts has grown and that of atypical contracts has gone from 29.6% to 39.8%. A reality that is irreconcilable with a system which, in order to allow decent treatment, requires full-contribution careers with salary growth.

“In the light of these data, as a National Youth Council, – continues Fortuna – once again we continue to demand the introduction of a guarantee pension for young people which provides for tools to support and cover the contributions for periods of training, discontinuity and wage fragility for young people.

Interventions which, if we do not want to ignore the risk of poverty to which entire generations are exposed, must be accompanied by structural changes that allow stable and quality access to the labor market, restoring, moreover, sustainability to a generational exchange pension model.

“This trend is also worrying for society as a whole, threatening our country’s competitiveness and future well-being in the coming years,” concluded Maria Cristina Pisani. “We need a more open and inclusive national debate on pensions. It is a question of intergenerational justice and the sustainability of our social system”.

The research “Contributory situation and pension future of young people. What answers to the pension winter” was created by the National Youth Council in collaboration with EU.RES Economic and Social Research.

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