EVALUATING ACTIVE AGING POLICIES IN ITALY

According to OECD definition “Active ageing refers to the capacity of people, as they grow older, to lead productive lives in society and economy”. However, despite the focus on labour market participation of mature workers, the active ageing issue cannot be conceived only in terms of employability: in fact, it concerns different dimensions, such as social inclusion, health related problems, and active citizenship.

At the end of the 1990s, demographic ageing has become a first concern for policy-makers at European and national level.

This phenomenon has been prompted by two major causes: first of all, the fall in the fertility rate; secondly, the increase in average life expectancy. In the European area, due to the growing concern for financial viability of pension schemes and public expenditure, the focus of active ageing strategies has more and more shifted towards prolonging working life and delay early retirements. The 2007-2013 European Social Fund programme, which financially supports the EES, has identified two main fields of intervention for older workers: a) improving access to training, in particular for low skilled and older workers; b) fighting discrimination, encouraging support for active ageing and the reintegration of older workers.

In Italy, national policies have addressed the problem of population ageing along three main directions: welfare policies, training policies and active labour market policies. Following this approach in the last years a number of policy experiences have been carried out in Italy, mostly implemented at regional level. In the majority of cases, these projects were aimed at supporting a specific dimension of active ageing, such as empowerment and intergenerational solidarity. Unfortunately, the “pilot” nature and the fragmentation of these activities are often the result of a lack of strategic and integrated planning and implementation, reflecting as well the lack of a comprehensive active ageing reference framework.

The main aim of the FGB research is to elaborate and test an “ad hoc” methodology and proper indicators in order to evaluate the effectiveness of active ageing strategies in Italy. By applying an innovative approach, it will be possible to evaluate transversely the achievement of the European Employment Strategy (EES) policy objectives concerning active ageing. In particular these are the main objectives to achieve:

• To promote an integrated approach for monitoring and implementing active ageing policies at regional level.
• To elaborate a methodological framework for an integrated evaluation of all active ageing strategies carried out in different fields and their contribution to the overall objective.
• To apply this model in three regional contexts
• To disseminate project’s results to stakeholders.