In 2025 there were 24.1 million employed people, compared to almost 23.2 million pensions paid, a ratio of 1 to 1. In the 1980s, however, it was 3 to 1. This is what emerges from an analysis by the CGIA research office in Mestre, for which the decline in births and the increase in life expectancy which have occurred in the last fifty years have pushed Italy towards a “very worrying, with inevitable consequences also for the world of work.”
According to what emerges from the analysis, the situation is destined to worsen in the short term. Forecasts indicate that, between 2025 and 2029, 3 million Italians will leave the job market. Of these, approximately 74% of the total, i.e. 2,244,700 people, will affect the central-northern regions.
This year, pension spending is destined to reach 351.8 billion euros: 2.7% more – underlines the CGIA – than what we paid last year, a trend in line with the trend in inflation which is expected to grow by 2.8% this year. But in 2029, with legislation in force, the amount of overall expenditure to pay all pension checks should increase by 36.8 billion, reaching 388.6 billion euros.
From the analysis of the balance between the number of employed people and pensions paid in 2025, the most “unbalanced” situation in Italy occurred in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria: the difference was equal to -90,368. Followed by the province of Taranto with -87,189, Lecce with -85,508 and Messina with -76,936. However, there are 11 northern provinces that record a higher number of pensions paid than that of active workers. These are Lecco Lecco with -188, Belluno with -213, La Spezia with -602, Alessandria with -1,227, Ferrara with -1,548, Sondrio with -1,869, Massa-Carrara with -2,731, Vercelli with -5,351, Rovigo with -5,652 and Biella with -9.153.