The aim of the study is to analyze the demographic structure of the population who receiving for the first time a disability insurance (DI) benefit as well as the relation between the rapid expansion of the beneficiary population and the aging working population. Furthermore, we estimate the number of beneficiaries of DI benefits and the relative costs for the main chronic-degenerative pathologies (CDP) from 2009 to 2015.

We analysed the database about the DI awards and the mean cost for benefit of the National Institute of Social Security (INPS) for two types of social security benefits: incapacity pensions (for people without work ability) and disability benefits (for people with reduced work ability).

Except for workers under the age of 21, age-specific rates shows slight increases in central ages from 1995 to 2015, while for the older ages reports significant increases in all the period, especially from 1995 to 2005. In particular musculoskeletal diseases (MSD), cancer (CA) and central nervous system diseases report very significant increases of the age-specific rates on the elderly ages. A comparison of standardized rates (figure 2) reveals that demographic changes in the considered period have had a strong impact on the trend of the DI awards in particular for MSD, CA and for all the diseases where the changes in the age structure explains respectively 126%, 45% and 69%.The model estimated for CDP a mean yearly cost for a mean yearly cost of €2.4 billion for disability benefits and a mean cost of €856 million for incapacity pension.