Poverty in ItalyPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv15wxn8n.7
C. Saraceno, D. Benassi, E. Morlicchio
{"title":"Poverty Regimes and the Great Recession","authors":"C. Saraceno, D. Benassi, E. Morlicchio","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv15wxn8n.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15wxn8n.7","url":null,"abstract":"After having discussed some methodological problems one has to face when assessing and comparing poverty across different countries, this chapter offers an overview of how the 2008 financial crisis affected the different European countries and poverty regimes, thus setting the Italian case in a broad European comparative perspective. Based on empirical data and the most recent literature, it argues that differences in the incidence and patterns of distribution of the negative impact of the crisis do not depend only on the strength of the economy, but also on the existing system of social protection and on the policy choices made by governments in response to the crisis. Focusing on the four largest Mediterranean countries, which have been among the worst hit by the crisis, it shows that although Italy has comparatively been less affected at the economy level, it has been much slower in recovering.","PeriodicalId":448395,"journal":{"name":"Poverty in Italy","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121307148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Poverty in ItalyPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv15wxn8n.12
C. Saraceno, D. Benassi, E. Morlicchio
{"title":"A late and uncertain comer in developing anti-poverty policies","authors":"C. Saraceno, D. Benassi, E. Morlicchio","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv15wxn8n.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15wxn8n.12","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter analyses the Italian system of social protection (including family allowances) with particular regard to its scarce efficacy in supporting the poor and to the fragmentation that often has counter-distributive effects. The fragmentation does not concern only the policy measures, but also their territorial distribution, across regions and municipalities. Particularly, although not only, in the case of poverty, until very recently there was no national policy, except for the poor old and the disabled. The responsibility for the poor (as for social services) was at the regional and municipal level, with no common framework. This long-standing situation was further strengthened by a constitutional reform in 2011. Within this institutional context, the introduction of a national minimum income provision was long opposed by various forces, notwithstanding some temporary experiments. The situation changed first at the civil society then at the policy level with the onset of the crisis, culminating with the introduction of the beginning of a minimum income scheme in 2016, followed by a reform, due to a change in the government coalition, in 2018. The fragile and changing government alliances that characterize the Italian political scene at present, together with the persistent view of the poor as “lazy” or “cheaters”, leave open the possibility that other changes may occur.","PeriodicalId":448395,"journal":{"name":"Poverty in Italy","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127671828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Poverty in ItalyPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.46692/9781447352228.006
C. Saraceno, D. Benassi, E. Morlicchio
{"title":"Working-poor, children and migrants: Italy’s ‘new poor’","authors":"C. Saraceno, D. Benassi, E. Morlicchio","doi":"10.46692/9781447352228.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447352228.006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on three, partly overlapping, social groups that appear as not only the “losers of the crisis” but of the overall Italian model of social regulation: the working poor, children and migrants. The working poor and underage children were already over-represented among the poor before the 2008 crisis set in and were also the worst affected, while the third group, migrants, are a new entry because Italy became an immigration country only comparatively late. Together, they well represent the characteristics of the Italian poverty regime, its over-expectations with regard to family solidarity, the skewedness of social protection in favour of pensions with little attention for children and for work-family conciliating policies, a large and increasing presence of precarious jobs with a blurring of boundaries between the formal and informal economy. Furthermore, the analysis of these three groups allows to explore the experience and risk of poverty from different perspectives: the individual and the household level, the functioning of the labour market, the household gender division of labour, the functioning of welfare, the costs of migration.","PeriodicalId":448395,"journal":{"name":"Poverty in Italy","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115535803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}