Older Italians are in good health and help their families despite low incomes - but there is still a big gender gap when it comes to marrying younger people.
Almost third of over-60s (30.8%) said they felt "very well", almost half (42.8%) "well" and only a quarter (25.4%) "not very well", according to the survey by the National Observatory of the Third Age.
Some 42.8% go to the doctor once a month, 43.% every two or three months and 13.5% never go at all. The elderly get by on very little, the survey found, with 48% receiving a monthly income of less than 600 euros, 32.2% getting between 600 and 100 euros and only 9% pulling in over 1,000 euros.
Despite this, 63.9% give a constant hand in bringing up their grandchildren while 33.6% chip in to the family budget on a regular basis. But the new Western trend of toy boys has yet to hit the Bel Paese. By contrast, the tradition of a younger new wife is still going strong. Of 1,000 divorced men over the age of 60, 20 get married again - compared to just 4 women.
One in ten elderly men marries a woman younger than 35.
Some 85% of the over-65s are self-sufficient - a figure that varies between 81.6% in affluent Lombardy and 89% in poorer Molise. Most old Italians aren't scared of getting older. Their biggest fears are being attacked (35.2%), swindled (27.4%) and leaving their homes empty (36.95).
Almost two thirds (63.4%) live in their own house, 18.4% in rented accommodation and 18.2% in council housing. An Abruzzo village has the highest percentage of over-80s, almost 30%, followed by a village near Turin with 27.6%.
In many villages and small towns the proportion of elderly to children is 1-1, or near it. Italy has one of the world's highest proportions of people over the age of 60. It also has one of the world's lowest birth rates, just 1.3 children per woman.
It has been calculated that there will be ten million fewer Italians by 2050, bringing the native population to under 50 million.
