Southern European Welfare Regimes and the Worsening Position of Women

Abstract

The article contributes to the current debate on welfare regimes, bringing together the widespread need for a fourth welfare regime besides Esping-Andersen's well-known typol ogy, and the results of its feminist critique. It is particularly in the case of Southern European countries that a gendered point of view seems crucial, to define the specificities of a different path in developing social protection. On the other hand, comparative analyses on gender and welfare state only seldom consider Mediterranean countries. In these countries the concept of subsidiarity formulated for continental-corporatist welfare regimes has to be modified: the family is still centre stage, but in the sense that only certain social risks are covered largely by the welfare state, those against which the family cannot protect itself. On the contrary, the state does not support families' normal functioning, as usually happens in etatist conservative countries. The only form of help on the part of the state has so far been to tolerate family strategies which bring together many ‘bread-crumbs’ of revenue. Since this relationship between the family and social policies has usually remained invisible, it is highly probable that today's rationalizing interventions on social provisions may have even worse effects on women's condition. Some recent transformations of Italian welfare state are analysed as an example of such a danger.