Lessons from the pandemic? Southern European welfare systems between old constraints and new opportunities: the case of Italy

Lessons from the pandemic? Southern European welfare systems between old constraints and new opportunities: the case of Italy

STEFANO NERI

In Southern European or Mediterranean countries, the Covid-19 pandemic significantly increased the awareness of the need to expand social service provision and to adapt health services to demographic, social and economic transformations. The seminar reconstructs how post-pandemic reforms have been developed and are currently implemented in Italy, focusing on health and social care (childcare and long-term care). Drawing from current research, the analysis shows how the interplay between the partial return of resource and institutional constraints and the changing nature of actors’ coalitions are undermining the reforms, with the risk of missing the historical opportunity to profoundly change the Italian “familistic” welfare system.

Stefano Neri is Associate Professor in Economic Sociology at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan. His main research interests and publications concern health and social policy, labour regulation and employment relations in public services, sociology of professions (particularly health, social and educational professions) and local government. Between 2020 and 2022, he was the Principal Investigator of the EU project “Sowell (Social dialogue in welfare services)”.

Seminar will be held in English. No registration is needed.