Thanks to an exceptional year for the stock markets, pension funds can also claim victory, exhibiting returns that even exceed 10%. Let’s be clear, not all pension funds perform like this. The data relates to 2023 and the stock sector (in pension funds there are also more cautious and therefore less profitable profiles). But it is certain that the best performances recorded returns during the year of between 10.2% in occupational funds and 11.5% in PIPs (individual pension plans).
However, a correct evaluation of the profitability of pension savings cannot be limited to the returns of a single year, but must refer to longer horizons. Over a ten-year observation period (from the end of 2013 to the end of 2023), the average compound annual returns of the lines with a higher equity content are, for all types of pension schemes, between 4.2 and 4.5%, higher to the average yield of the bond lines and also to the TFR revaluation rate (equal to 2.4% over the decade). This is one of the indications that emerged from the annual report of Covip, the Pension Fund Supervisory Commission. In 2023, there were 9.6 million workers registered with the various forms of existing funds (just over 300) (+3.7% compared to 2022): however, they represent only 36.9% of the total workforce. A generation gap persists (membership of young people under 35 constitutes only 19.3% of the total) and a gender gap (women members represent only 38.3% of the total). Faced with these gaps, the Covip president, Francesca Balzani (pictured), declared that «at least in an initial phase of participation in a pension fund, in the presence of weak situations, the tax benefits, today substantially expressed in terms of deductibility of the contributions, up to 5,164.57 euros per year, could be transformed into an entry fee.
Such a measure, the actual contours of which are certainly left to political choices, where it could particularly encourage the involvement of young people, would also make it possible to achieve greater intergenerational equity”. The total assets of pension funds are 224.4 billion euros (+9.1%), which is added to the 114.3 billion (+10.11%) of the assets of private or privatized pension funds.
