Italy is still the home of retired babies. Although decades have passed, there are over half a million pensions that have been regularly paid every month for over 40 years, making the INPS accounts soar. According to what emerges from the Observatories of the Institute on pensions in force at the beginning of 2021, there are more than 561 thousand pensions dating back to 1981 and previous years, taking into account those of old age, those for survivors and finally those of social security invalidity. A number that drops to 318,000 if disability checks are not considered. For the private sector the pensions up to 1980 amounted to 423,009, while 67,245 those starting in 1981. For the public the pensions starting in 1980 and in previous years are 53,274; 17,508 those dating back to 1981. The checks have practically been going on since Brezhnev was still leading the Soviet Union in the middle of the Cold War and since Italy lived for the first time the political experience of the Pentapartite with Giovanni Spadolini as Prime Minister.
The average retirement age in the public is 44 years
In the private sector, pensions in force since at least 1980 have an average age at the start of retirement of 41.84 years for an average amount of 587 euros: a figure that is mainly affected by the low and average age at the commencement of 168,403 survivors’ pensions ( 38.29 years) and that of the 200,972 social security invalidity pensions (41.63 years); while for the 53,634 old-age pensions the average age at the time of the pension payment was 53.76 years. At that time, in fact, there were several rules in force for access to pensions with women who retired at 55 years of age. On the other hand, looking at pensions paid in 2020, in the private sector the average age of 67.02 years with a starting date of 64.17 years for old age (a category that includes early retirement payments). For the public sector, the average age at commencement for pensions dating back to at least 1980 is 41.2 years with the average age for 21,104 old-age pensions of 44 years (and an average monthly amount of 1,525 euros). In those years it was possible for civil servants with children to retire with 14 years, six months and one day of contributions (the so-called baby pension) and there are still thousands of pensions in place thanks to that rule and the others that allowed retirement with 20-25 years of work. The average age at the commencement of pensions paid in 2020 in the public instead of 65.8 years with a lower age for old-age pensions (63.9). Finally, at least as of 1980, 16,787 disability pensions (38.2 years the average age at the start) and 15,383 survivors’ allowances with 40.8 years starting (and an average monthly allowance of 1,181 euros) also date back to at least 1980.