Too busy to stay at work. How willing are Italian workers “to pay” for earlier retirement?

Using a representative sample of Italian workers aged 55+, we survey their understanding of the recent (2011) pension reform and analyse their preference for earlier retirement and willingness to pay for exiting the workforce a year earlier. The preference for earlier retirement is particularly strong for women and for workers who were obliged by the reform to postpone retirement. As for the willingness to pay, we find that women who are involved in informal care of children are willing to pay significantly more than women who are not caregivers, and more than men. In terms of policy, our findings point to the need for considering side effects of reforms and of integrating policy measures. In particular, when a pension system compensates for gaps in other welfare programs (like providing early retirement as a substitute for lack of public care services), its reform may cause social mismatches unless supplemented by appropriate changes in these other programs.