Pfor many Italians retirement has become a sort of mobile mirage: a goal that seems to move every time we get closer. This widespread feeling does not arise from banal pessimism, but emerges forcefully from Pensions Landscape 2025, the new OECD reportthe Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. A document that, more than just reeling off numbers, photographs an Italy that is changing shape, forced to rethink its pact between generations.
Pension: rising age. According to the OECD, in Italy he will reach 70 years
In years past, retiring in your sixties was an almost natural goal. Today that boundary line has moved significantly further. According to OECD projections, those who started their career in 2024 will only be able to retire from work at the age of 66. It is a change that does not only concern Italy: in many European countries the retirement age is destined to increase in future years, because regulations link it to the increase in life expectancy. It means that too if today you don’t retire at 70, this goal could become realistic for generations younger if longevity continues to rise.
A society that is aging faster than its accounts
The root of these choices is in demographic numbers. Europe, and Italy in particular, is aging at a rate that will have profound consequences. By 2050, every hundred people of working age (20–64 years) will have to “support” more than fifty over 65s. In 2025 there were just over thirty. Some countries, like South Korea, will see an even sharper surge. But Italy is also among the nations where aging is fastestwith social and economic repercussions that are already starting to be felt.
According to the OECD, those entering the world of work today should expect a longer retirement (Getty)
A country with fewer and fewer workers
Alongside the increase in the elderly, there is the complementary phenomenon: the decrease in people of working age. According to the report, in Italy the population between 20 and 64 years old will decrease by more than 35% over the next forty years. A percentage which is equivalent, in real terms, to the disappearance of the active population of two large regions added together, like Veneto and Tuscany.
This decline, far from being a mere statistic, means fewer workers paying contributions, fewer young people entering the job market and a pension system that is struggling to stand on its own two feet. It is also a structural change that affects families, the job market, businesses and even daily life choices.
Retirement is not the same for everyone: the gender gap
Then there is a less visible but very resistant fracture: the distance between the pensions of men and women. The OECD defines it as GPG, an acronym for Gender Pension Gapor the percentage difference between the average pension allowance of the two sexes. In Italy this gap, although slightly improved in recent years, remains broad. Women receive significantly lower pensions, the result of careers that are often discontinuous and more marked by periods dedicated to family care.
And female workers between the ages of fifty and sixty know this well they know well the weight of choices that today affect their future pension. The OECD suggests that fully aligning the age of access to early pensions between men and women would be a useful step to reduce this disparity.
Beyond the numbers: a new balance to be built
The figures in the OECD report outline a complex picture, made up of changing balances and challenges that do not only concern public budgets. At stake is the possibility of build a life path in which longevity does not become a burdenneither individual nor collective. It will be necessary, however, to rethink the relationship between work, time and care: understand how to guarantee decent pensions without leaving anyone behind; support the birth rate and at the same time enhance those who age; find new forms of solidarity between generations. It’s not a simple task, but it is an inevitable step if we want the retirement agethat moment in which after having worked and paid for a lifetime, you gain a well-deserved rest, is still possible.