Active Ageing in Italy: Labour Market Perspectives and Access to Welfare

Abstract

The quantitative data describing the participation of older workers in the Italian labour market shows, without any doubt, that Italy’s performance is poor when compared not only with the most virtuous countries but also with the EU average. According to Eurostat (2013), the employment rate for older Italian workers (aged 55–64) is 42.7%, while the EU average is 50.1%. More recent data, published by Confindustria (the biggest employers’ association), show that the employment rate for older workers has further increased (46.9%), which puts Italy in fourth place for the 2007–2013 period in the EU ranking as regards this indicator. However, Italy’s performance, while encouraging, is still unsatisfactory in absolute terms.