Welfare state reform in Southern Europe. Fighting poverty and social exclusion in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece

Abstract:

This work is one of the Routledge/EUI Studies in the Political Economy of Welfare series, which is concerned with leading edge research on the recasting of European welfare states. The book consists of six contributions from an impressive panel of contributors embracing disciplines of economics, sociology, public administration and comparative politics.

The first chapter is an introduction which sets out the history and background together with the aims of the volume and methodology employed. The following four chapters are country specific. Chapter two features Greece, examining its exceptional approach to fully fledged minimum income schemes and the low priority given to construction of a comprehensive social safety net. Chapter three explores the faltering steps that Italy has taken in the fight against poverty, presenting analysis of the poverty profile and the need for a safety net as an essential level of provision. The fourth chapter turns to Spain, looking at the significant influence of EU membership upon economic growth, and the subsequent impact of high levels of unemployment and demographic imbalance on the stability of the welfare settlement. In chapter five further evidence is presented of the influence of EEC/EU membership upon social welfare policies, this time in Portugal. The sixth and final chapter deals with poverty and the safety net in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in the post-Communist era, considering the transition from the former social protection schemes of the socialist regimes.

The work will interest scholars, students, researchers and policy makers engaged in European Studies, Economics, welfare programmes and poverty management.

Maurizio Ferrera is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Milan.