The market determines different yields on investments of different maturities; of considerable importance is the gap between interest rates on short-dated investments and those with longer maturities. If these interest rates are plotted against unexpired maturity, the result is the yield curve, and of importance is its slope.
In 2005 it stood at 57.6 per cent, against an EU average of 63.8 per cent; only Hungary, Poland and Malta had lower figures (Figure 1). The gap is especially wide for women (Figure 2). In Italian society, then, there is no lack of unutilized human resources.