Schiaretti was born in Córdoba, Argentina, to Julia Álamo and Dante Schiaretti. His father was a railway worker and Peronist activist descended from immigrants from Parma. He was imprisoned after the military coup which toppled President Juan Perón in 1955. His mother is, a housewife. Schiaretti studied at the Escuela Pública Nacional N°95, in the Talleres Oeste neighbourhood, then at the Liceo Militar General Paz, which he entered at eleven and left with the gold medal for best academic achievement of his group (1961 to 1965). He enrolled at the School of Economic Sciences of the National University of Córdoba, where he qualified as a public accountant at age 21. He married a fellow political activist and had two children.