In Italy, ten years after the supplementary pension reform, which introduced the "silent consent" mechanism for the transfer of severance pay to pension funds, significant progress has been made. The assets managed by the supplementary pensions almost tripled (from 52 billion euros to over 150 billion) and the members more than doubled (from 3,2 to 7,8 million).
Overall, the resources accumulated by supplementary pension schemes represent approximately 9% of GDP and 3,6% of the financial assets of Italian families, a value that is still low even if more than double that of 2006. Before the start of the reform, at the end of 2006, these percentages were equal to 3,5% and 1,5% respectively. Compared to the workforce, a potential audience of 25,8 million units, the rate of participation in supplementary pensions has reached 27,8%.
Above all, workers belonging to the more advanced age groups can count on second-level social security coverage. In the absence of interventions to counteract the demographic decline and in the presence of considerable employment uncertainties, the prospects for the welfare of young millennials present critical issues. The low replacement rates deriving from discontinuous contributions are associated with a reduced participation in the supplementary pension scheme. Only 15% of the workforce under the age of 35 is enrolled in a supplementary pension scheme.
The investment choices of Italian pension funds favor domestic assets which, with a stock of 35 billion euros (of which 31 billion euros of Italian public debt securities), amount to just under 30% of the total. On the other hand, the financing component addressed to Italian companies appears to be much smaller, amounting to a total of 3,4 billion euro. The contribution of pension funds to covering the financial needs of Italian companies appears limited by international comparison.
To channel a greater share of pension savings into the real Italian economy, it is necessary to overcome some technical limits and to encourage, among others, investment in instruments such as closed-end funds through which to invest in private equity, mini-bonds and renewable energies, present marginally only in the portfolio of some pre-existing pension funds.
