Italy is one of the European countries where people live the longest, but also one of those where fewer years are spent in the labor market. In 2025, according to Cna data, the expected duration of working life stops at 33 years, the second lowest value in the European Union after Romania and a full four and a half years less than the EU average, which is 37.5 years. Compared to 2024, the improvement is minimal: just over two months, against an increase of three months recorded in the European average (last year Italy was at 32.8 years, the EU 37.2).
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The gap with our competitor countries
Not only that. The gap with the main European economies remains very wide: the expected duration of working life reaches 40.2 years in Germany, 37.5 in France, 36.8 in Spain, and in the Netherlands it even reaches 44 years. And although Italy has advanced compared to ten years ago, the gap with the EU has widened: in 2015 the expected duration was 30.7 years, with an increase of 2.3 years in 10 years; but in the same period the EU average went from 34.9 to 37.5 years, and so the gap rose from 4.2 to 4.5 years.
Women lag behind
Another rather critical data concerns women: in Italy the expected duration of their working life is just 28.4 years, compared to 35.4 in the European average. The gap between men and women reaches 8.9 years, the highest in the Union. A result consistent with a female employment rate stuck at 58%, almost thirteen points below the EU average, and with the widest gender employment gap among member states.
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What this indicator means
The indicator, explains Cna, does not measure the retirement age nor the number of years actually worked by those with continuous employment: it estimates the years a 15-year-old person can expect to spend in the workforce, as employed or unemployed, based on current demographic conditions and participation levels. The Italian result therefore mainly reflects the late entry of young people, discontinuous careers, and low female participation, Cna explains further, emphasizing that the picture takes on even greater weight in a country where the median age has reached 49.1 years, those over 65 represent almost a quarter of the population, and pension expenditure is equal to 15.5% of GDP, the highest share in the European Union.
Targeted policies for employment are needed
“In a rapidly aging country, leaving such a large part of human capital unused is not only a social problem but a structural limit to growth and the future sustainability of the pension system,” warns Cna president Dario Costantini. According to the artisans’ confederation, “targeted policies for youth and female employment, strengthening technical and vocational education, apprenticeships, work-family reconciliation, continuous training, and active aging” are therefore needed. And it is also necessary, Cna says, “to support the transmission of businesses and skills between generations, enhancing the role of micro and small enterprises.”
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