On the effect of pension expectations and financial literacy on pension planning: a preliminary investigation for the Italian population

Pension reforms are on the agenda of several governments worldwide, especially those experiencing a serious longevity risk, like Italy, due to the combination of ageing of the population and declining fertility rates. As a result, younger generations will have to cope with late pension age and possibly lower pension incomes, and individuals may opt to subscribe private pensions to sustain their expectations, in terms of retirement age and pension benefits. Propensity to private pension planning depends heavily on financial literacy, as highlighted in the literature (see [3–5], among others). In this context, for the Italian population we propose to resort to model-based regression trees [8] to highlight individuals’ features that entail different effects of pension expectations and financial literacy on propensity to pension planning.