Italy’s first-pillar pension funds for white-collar workers – the Casse di Previdenza – are increasingly under pressure from an ageing population and a changing labour market.
The doctors’ pension fund, Enpam, with nearly €30bn in assets, approved its 2026 budget forecast, projecting a deficit of around €430m. Pension and welfare spending next year is expected to reach €4.7bn, against contributions of roughly €3.7bn, leaving a shortfall of about €1bn.
The outlook was drafted with “utmost caution”, factoring in the so-called “pension hump”, the peak in the number of pensioners.
To address rising pension costs, Enpam has created a hedging portfolio to generate cash flows, alongside a performance portfolio aimed at ensuring long-term financial sustainability, said president Alberto Oliveti.
Inarcassa, the €17bn pension scheme for Italian engineers and architects, expects pension and social security expenses to rise to €1.16bn in 2026, up from €1.08bn in 2025.
The fund forecasts contributions of €1.82bn, down from €1.90bn, resulting in a projected €1bn surplus. Inarcassa also reported a 19% drop in membership during the first nine months of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.
Structural challenges
Labour market shifts since the COVID-19 pandemic have compounded pressures on first-pillar pension funds.
Employment in the information and communications technology sector has grown over the past five years, according to a Bank of Italy paper, while the working-age population has declined, creating recruitment difficulties.
Claudio Pinna, head of wealth Italy at Aon, told IPE that pension funds must closely monitor demographic and labour trends.
“This is particularly worrisome in Italy because our [pension] system has always guaranteed very high benefits. Future benefits will be paid by contributions made by young workers. The low birth rate in Italy has and will have an impact on the labour market in the future,” he said.
The migration of young Italians abroad is also straining the system. Between 2014 and 2023, 367,000 Italians aged 25-34 moved abroad, including 146,000 university graduates, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT).
Pension funds are trying, on the one hand, to adjust benefits to the flow of contributions, and on the other hand, introduce more stringent requirements for receiving accrued benefits, Pinna added.
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