Pension projection: retirement age at 67 and a half in 2029, pension expenditure/GDP at 17.1% in 2041

In 2029 you will retire at 67 and a half years of age while in 2031 you will have to wait until 67 years and 8 months: this is what the General Accounting Office of the State predicts in the report on the medium-long term trends of the pension and social-health system.

To retire early regardless of age you must have 43 years and four months of contributions in 2029 and 43 years and 6 months of contributions in 2031 (one year less for women).

In 2027 you will retire at 67 years and one month of age and in 2028 at 67 years and three months. For the early payment, 42 years and 11 months of contributions will be needed in 2027 and 43 years and one month in 2028.

The growth in the ratio between pension expenditure and GDP will reach its peak in 2041 at 17.1%, a level at which it will remain for the following three years. From 2045 onwards the ratio will progressively decrease, reaching 16.2% in 2050 and 14.0% in 2070.

The growing trend until 2041, explains the Rgs, is mainly linked to the increase in the number of pensions compared to that of employed people, "induced by the demographic transition linked to the entry into retirement of the baby boom generations, only partially compensated by the increase in the minimum requirements for access to retirement and by the effect of the containment of pension amounts exerted by the gradual application of the contributory calculation system over the entire working life".

The subsequent rapid reduction in the ratio between pension expenditure and GDP in the twenty years following the peak is instead determined by the generalized application of the contribution calculation which is accompanied by the stabilisation, and subsequent trend reversal, of the relationship between the number of pensions and the number of employed people. "This trend is affected both by the progressive exit of the baby boom generations and by the automatic adjustment of minimum retirement requirements based on life expectancy", underlines the report.

The Accounting Department also analyzes the trend over the years of overall spending on pensions, healthcare and long-term care, also evaluating it in this case in relation to GDP. After the increases in the two three-year periods 2008-2010 and 2012-2014, due exclusively to the impact of the recession and the consequent drop in product levels, the ratio between overall spending and GDP fell, reaching 22.5% in 2018.

Spending began to grow again in 2019, reaching 22.7% of GDP, while in 2020, mainly due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic and the collapse of the economy, it underwent a significant increase, reaching 25.3%. In the following years, with the recovery of GDP, overall public spending linked to the aging of the population was reduced by 3.3 percentage points, reaching 22.1 in 2023 and then starting to grow again up to 23.2% in 2030, a value still 6 tenths of a point of GDP higher than that of 2018 and just over one percentage point higher than that of 2023.

Starting from 2030, the ratio grows further up to the maximum value of 25.5% in 2044, and then takes on a decreasing trend which brings it to 23% in 2070, a level higher than the value of 2018 and 2023.