"Eppur si Muoveva" : the Italian Trajectory of Recent Welfare Reforms : from 'Rescued by Europe' to Euro-Skepticism

The Italian welfare state is generally classified as either an example of the continental or Bismarckian welfare regime (Esping-Andersen, 1990) or, adopting other conceptual lenses, a representative of the Southern European welfare state family (Ferrera, 1996). Since the “golden decades” of welfare state expansion (roughly 1950s–70s), the Italian welfare state configuration has been characterized by the predominance of the male breadwinner model, a deep gap between the “insiders” – mainly workers in core economic sectors and pensioners — and the “outsiders” — the unemployed, mostly women and young people — and by the crucial role of the family in providing informal social protection for its members (Saraceno, 1994). However, during the 1990s and early 2000s the Italian welfare state underwent an unprecedented process of reform. The interventions adopted in the fields of employment policy, pension policy and the social assistance sector were crucial components in this process aimed at “modernizing”— or “recalibrating” à la Ferrera and Hemerijck (2003) — the Italian welfare state.