Active ageing e autonomia collettiva. “Non è un Paese per vecchi”, ma dovrà diventarlo presto

The article investigates the contribution of social partners to active ageing in Italy. Until recent times the country relied upon a system of unemployment benefits and early retirement schemes that allowed old employees to leave the labour market. This is the reason why neither the Government, nor the social partners are provided with a comprehensive strategy of active ageing. The Monti pension reform (2011) has made nearly impossible to retire before the age of 60 and, because of the lack of public resources, the Fornero law (2012) has encouraged social partners to build up funds to retrain employees and to accompany to retirement those who are old and unable to find a new job. In recent times nation-wide collective agreements have spontaneously begun to set down provisions that reflect an increasing attention for older workers: flexible time arrangements and partial retirement schemes for older workers should be experimented in the near future, especially if the legislator offers incentives; health and long term care insurances are becoming increasingly widespread. Also at the enterprise level social partners are negotiating welfare and organisational arrangements that are focused upon older workers. Nevertheless, the Italian experience keeps being still underdeveloped in a comparative perspective (some German, French and Swedish examples are briefly taken into account), mainly because of the persistent lack of strategy by the policy makers.