INPS: three million young people use digital services

Three million young people under the age of 34 regularly use the INPS’s digital services. One year on from the launch of ‘INPS for Young People’, the Institute’s president, Gabriele Fava, presented the results achieved at the Rimini Meeting, outlining the next stages of the project dedicated to the younger generation.

The initiative, aimed at young people aged between 18 and 34, was launched with the aim of strengthening the relationship between INPS and the younger generation through a programme focused on social security education and raising awareness of the welfare system and the world of work. The strategy has been developed along three main lines: establishing a presence on the channels most frequently used by young people; making information on welfare simpler, more understandable and more useful; and adopting language and formats that encourage participation and engagement. Today, compared with two years ago, it is easier for young people to access their contribution statements, the degree redemption scheme, bonuses and scholarships, as well as benefits such as the ISEE, the Inclusion Allowance (ADI) or the Training and Employment Support (SFL).

The Youth Portal – the section of the INPS.it website dedicated to services for the under-34s – recorded 3.3 million visits and 2.8 million unique visitors, 1.7 million of whom accessed the site via the INPS mobile app, whilst social media activity generated over 1.6 million interactions. During the same period, the proportion of young people registered with the MyINPS personal account area increased by 12 per cent, and around 20 per cent of users coming from the Youth section continued their journey by accessing at least one of the services made available by the Institute.

The President of INPS, Gabriele Fava, stated that ‘when we talk about pensions, the most natural temptation is to look back. We look at the entitlements accrued, the accounts to be safeguarded, and the guarantees owed to those who have completed their working lives. That is right. It is necessary. But it is no longer enough. A pension system is not truly sound merely because it pays today’s pensions. It is sound when it creates the conditions to guarantee tomorrow’s pensions as well. And that tomorrow belongs to young people. Pension provision, in fact, does not begin at the end of one’s working life. It begins with the first contract, the first contribution, the first choice. A young person who does not know their contribution status does not know what tools they can use and experiences work as a series of interruptions; they struggle to plan for a home, a family, or their own future.’

It is against this backdrop that President Fava has put forward the idea of forging a new pact with the younger generations. “The new pact with young people is built around a simple and practical idea, which I have summarised in the three Ps: Partnership, platforms and informed pension planning,” explained Fava. The first concerns businesses, which are the primary partners of the social security system and the first place where a young person finds stability, skills and prospects. The second concerns the tools. The Youth Portal is not merely a repository of information, but a platform that makes interaction with the Institute simpler and more direct. The third P is the challenge on which we must focus our efforts. Over the years, there has been a lack of an informed culture regarding social security, and we want to build this by engaging with young people in the places where their decisions are shaped: in schools, at universities, at careers fairs, in career guidance centres and on digital channels. Meetings, workshops, roadshows, mobile advice centres, podcasts, short videos and social media content are not merely a communication exercise. They are practical tools for bridging the gap between a recognised right and the actual ability to exercise it. It is not a question of asking young people to think about old age just yet. It is about giving them the tools today to shape their own future.