From work to retirement: a tale of bumpy routes

This paper contributes to the debate on ageing with an empirical assessment of how this issue has become evident in the Italian labour market in recent decades. To set the stage, we describe the effects of population ageing on the workforce, and how workforce ageing has been dealt with by firms of different dimensions. Then we focus on the working careers of older individuals, and particularly on the current modes of transition from work to retirement. The stereotyped view is that end-of-career percourses in Italy have been ‘linear’, with smooth transitions from lifetime jobs to retirement. This paper challenges this view, showing that the ends-of-career of an important share of the working population is marked by irregular patterns of labour market activity, with negative impacts on their wages and pensions. This has been true in recent years also as a consequence of collective dismissals and early retirement practices followed in the large-firm sector, and it may worsen in the future. The paper argues that policy reforms aiming at the flexibilization of retirement should adequately target the most vulnerable group of workers, and that a revision of social security contributions is necessary to reduce the fiscal wedge between the younger and the older generations.