ABSTRACT
The social-economic Italian discussion on the themes of ageing and work is mainly focused on analysing the holding capacity, in the light of economic estimates and demographic and occupational predictions, of the pension legislature in force resulting from the pension reforms of the mid-1990s. In view of the changes in the labour market and the increase of new, non-standard and atypical, different typologies of workers the structure of the Italian welfare state has been the object of considerable criticism. In Italy, there are two principal ways to exit the labour force before the age of 65, i.e., the legal age of retirement: through early exit mechanisms and through retirement after long service. The protection of older people in Italy reflects the more general structure of the national welfare system, notoriously characterised, as in other cases of the ‘Southern European family’, by a penchant towards direct monetary benefits, to the detriment of services.
