Some women born in 1953 could be allowed to retire up to 30 years before their peers due to a delay in reforming Italian pension law.
Changes had been planned for the so-called Fornero Law, which was introduced in 2011 and outlined that pensions should be calculated based on the number of social security payments made, and no longer on the average salary earned in the last years before retirement. The retirement age for women was raised.
But a delay in changing the law means that the retirement age for women will climb in 2016 from 63 years and nine months to 65 years and seven months.
A further increase to kick in in 2018, will penalise women born in the year 1953 in particular, who risk having to wait until 2020 to claim their pensions.
However, an anomaly in the system means that there could be a woman born that year who, if she immediately began work in the public sector after she graduated in 1975, and then took advantage of the so-called baby pension system, she would have been eligible for retirement aged 36.
However, one of her peers who may have started work in 1978 in the private sector will have to wait until 2020 - when she'll be 67 years old - to receive her pension.
This means that, in theory, one woman born in 1953 would have worked 27 years more than the other.
Under the baby pension system, employees have the right to retire after contributing 14 years and six months' worth of social security contributions.
The Italian system is also producing significant differences in retirement age for those who worked in the private sector, even for those of a similar age. A woman born on December 31, 1951 who began working in 1978, would have been eligible for retirement on January 1, 2013, aged 61. However, a woman born only a year and a day later on January 1, 1953, and who began working in 1978, may only be eligible for retirement in 2020.
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