Safety Net in Southern Europe

Abstract

‘Safety net’ is regarded as the bottom-line of social welfare. Its establishment in Western democracies aims at providing citizens and families with basic means that guarantee the satisfaction of minimum vital needs and facilitate social integration. In Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) the building up of nets of social assistance is highly conditioned by the nature of its welfare development and institutional peculiarities. Four elements can be underlined in this respect: (a) Fragmented social protection of an occupational nature; (b) A type of family in which women carry out a pivotal role for assistance and care; (c) A particularist distribution of welfare resources and fiscal transfers; and (d) An increasing role for the ‘third sector’ in the provision of social services. The paper looks at issues regarding the targeting of the poor, the ‘Mathew effect’, the Southern family, and the implementation of minimum income programmes for the excluded and poor in decentralised Spain.