eventi_rps_multi_inglese
tags_rps_multi_english
welfare locale
protezione sociale
mercato del lavoro
welfare
sistema socio-sanitario
politiche sociali
sindacato
welfare state
politiche socio-assistenziali
occupazione
società
governance
Italia
economia
anziani
Unione europea
immigrazione
corso di vita
politiche per la non autosufficienza
Europa
pubblico
famiglia
servizi sociali
politiche familiari
cittadinanza
Beyond the Crisis, what Social Cohesion?
Forum Rps EspaNet 2010 | Extract and other studies
N4
2010
October - December
Description
This issue collects revised versions of the papers presented at the Rps’ annual Forum with ESPAnet-Italia (Rome, 15-16 November 2010) as well as some valuable additional material, including the piece by Robert Castel which opens the volume. The wide-ranging analyses in the first part are followed in the second by detailed analyses of the situation in Italy regarding employment, social questions and institutional reform. The works published concern both the main processes of reform and “adjustment” of the systems of social protection for employment, wages and local welfare, and also some of the main social emergencies in the country, all of which have been exacerbated by the crisis and are also less protected by a structure of social policies, which have become weaker and more residual. This issue also published for the first time the feature “European Observatory” prepared by the Eso (European Social Observatory) in collaboration with the European Observatory, Inca. It will have a permanent place in the journal from now on, and on this occasion is on the subject of the main developments in social action in the Eu. It is designed as an essential source of information for the reader.
To buy this issue go to the italian version
New social risks and European Strategy
In a «Society of Individuals». Notes on the Socio-anthropological Dimension of Social Protection
After some prefatory remarks on the recent change in the meaning of «reform», a term now also used by the free-trade right as a means of attacking social and labour protection, the author dwells on what he describes as the socio-anthropological component of social protection. It is thanks to this basis of resources and rights, gained over time, that the modern individual is formed as an effective member of a «society of fellow-men». Fundamentally for this reason, in the present trend towards a «society of individuals» there
is greater need for social protection, not less. This in turn should be modified, linking new rights to what are now unignorable requirements of flexibility and mobility.
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Risks Old and New. How Policies React to the Modification of the Social Contract
Changes in the family and in the jobs market, as well the globalization of the economy and the movements of people have weakened the three pillars on which the welfare state was built: job security, longlasting
marriage based on a division of labour, and fixed national borders. There is much talk of «new social risks», but the old ones have not disappeared. This contribution discusses the steps taken by various countries to deal with two of the most talked-about of these supposedly new social risks: the need to reconcile care responsibility and participation in the jobs market (with the linked potential risk of a care deficit) not only when there are small children, but also given the growing demand for care by weak old people; and the de-standardization of life paths as both labour and family relations have weakened. The differences in terms of adequacy do not depend only on mechanisms of path dependency, but also on timing and the economic context of these changes. The Italian situation seems particularly unfavourable from this point of view.
Europe 2020. Policies against Poverty and Exclusion in the European Strategy for the Next Decade
The European Union’s new strategy, Europe 2020, offers an integrated and innovative response to the economic and social challenges that the economic crisis has highlighted or worsened. Proposed and adopted during the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, Europe 2020 places the reduction of poverty and exclusion as one of the Union’s priorities and defines a quantitative aim to be reached before the end of the decade. To support this commitment and make it credible, the European Commission has proposed a flagship initiative, the European Platform to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion, one of whose tasks will be to appeal to social innovation to find adequate responses to social risks old and new.
International comparisons
Employment, Consumption, Debt and Industrial Relations Systems in Europe. A Path of Research
Comparisons between British and German employment performance in recent years have characterized the two countries as, respectively, finding a formula of high employment based on high consumption expenditure financed by household debt, and remaining tied to an external trade and low consumption model that no longer creates jobs. Placing these two countries in a wider perspective of all European Union member states and the Usa reveals a different picture. Two different patterns seem associated with high employment levels:
a northern European one of low consumption expenditure and high household debt, and an Anglophone one of high consumption expenditure and high household debt. Links for these contrasting models are sought in their very different social policy and industrial relations systems. Questions are raised concerning the role of household debt in the northern European cases, and the lack of any clear patterns differentiating much of western, southern and central Europe.
Objective and Subjective Indicators of Social Cohesion. Italy and Germany in the European Scenario
The aim of this essay is to bring out the efforts of European researchers to construct significant measurements of the different dimensions of social cohesion, with particular attention to Italy and Germany.
Systematic comparison between European countries shows Italy as being less cohesive than Germany, even bearing in mind that both are less cohesive than Scandinavian countries. The attempt to verify the differences in the reaction to the recent economic-financial crisis seems to indicate a correlation between low cohesion and the negative impact of the crisis on employment and poverty. The second part of the essay describes analyses by international bodies of the different impact of the crisis on living conditions in European
countries. Lastly, the weight of investments in the service sector is considered, particularly public services, for a better reaction to the crisis. The characteristics of the German model of the «social market
economy» emerge well, as a result of the opportunities they offer to combat the excesses of market logics.
Public, Private, Common. Lessons from the World Crisis
After bringing out the specific elements of the present economic crisis, the essay shows how the peculiar characteristics of the ongoing crisis require proactive state intervention on the economy, as both guide and agent, through economic planning, and structural change of the development model. The essay also points out the equal importance that other institutions can have in explaining the crisis and how to get over it: the civil virtues that individuals can acquire in various ways and social capital, understood as all those social relations of trust that not only precede the market and so create a favourable atmosphere for trade, but also avoid its failures due to opportunism, informational asymmetries and contractual incompleteness. For the author, the plurality of principles of regulation should also have a corresponding plurality of economic forms (private, public and civil), a plurality of business forms (private, public, mixed public and private, cooperative, non-profit) and a plurality of forms of goods (private, public, relational, common).
Keywords: institutionalist political economy :: institutional pluralism :: gift economy :: social capital ::
Employment and Human Capital
Effects of the Crisis and Employment Dynamics in Italy and Europe
The analysis considers the effects on employment of the crisis in Italy in the period 2008-2009, suggesting that the redefinition of the characteristics of job demands, and not just their level, is a suitable way of
understanding the specific features of the Italian situation. Comparing employment dynamics in Italy with those of other European countries there emerges, as in other countries, the greater weakness of non-standard employment, but also – uniquely – a contraction in more qualified jobs and an increase in non-qualified ones. The effects of this adjustment have been socially differentiated and selective, penalizing
above all the younger, more qualified members of the work force, and proving to be more serious in the South, where the role of unemployment pay and the compensatory effects of the service sector have been weaker. Italian businesses are fragmented and not very innovative, and there is little interest from the political and institutional world in the contexts of innovation and competitiveness, and this may have encouraged adaptive and defensive strategies in the choices of re-sizing and in the definition of new employment requirements.
Italy. Female Employment in a Time of Crisis: New Segmentation and Old Contradictions
The article examines the progress of female employment in the face of the world economic crisis that has hit the country. The aim is to bring out how, in the present-day scenario, not only gender inequalities, related to the trends of the last fifteen years, are growing, but also those between women. In a context where there are serious employment difficulties, the unequal distribution of opportunities, both between different areas and different classes, produces further fragmentation. At the same time, there is an emerging «need» for women to work, to reduce the economic vulnerability of the family, given the serious implications on economic wellbeing and expenditure on children. The conclusions emphasize the clear risk of widening the gulf between a North that may already be enjoying an upturn, and a South where those regressive phenomena might be consolidated, forcing women into an anachronistic role as housewives and excluding the young from jobs and professional training.
Reflections on the Anti-cyclical Role of Educational Policies: Theories and Historical Experiences
The aim of this article is to illustrate the main economic mechanisms that can create problems of coordination and under-accumulation of human capital during periods of economic slowdown due to shortterm idiosyncratic shocks and/or the need for a more profound restructuring of the economic system (e.g. in the presence of technological revolutions). The analysis of these mechanisms is followed by the illustration of some historical cases in which policies aimed at encouraging human capital accumulation have led to a proper coordination between human capital, physical capital and technology, thus overcoming a period of crisis. Finally, the last part presents the results of an analysis aimed at evaluating how temporary salary shocks can have permanent effects on the level of human capital by reinforcing family bonds.
Welfare payments and income support in Italy
Economic Crisis and Regional Wage-support Policies
The crisis of the system of production has had the effect of reinforcing the role of regional administrations in managing passive labour policies. In fact, we need to consider not only the functions of running – and financing – the benefits system, delegated to the regions in the agreement between state and regions of February 2009, but also the array of additional and substitute interventions that have been made by locally autonomous bodies. Yet regional interventions, lagging behind national interventions, have been patchy and inevitably limited to the immediate area, and bring out the potentially disruptive character intrinsic to more recent developments in the area of wageprotection policies, when they are not sufficiently accompanied by a
strongly equalizing action at national level.
Derogated Benefits: which Regional Welfare Systems
The article presents the first results of ongoing research and monitoring. It describes national legislation, the general aims behind the organization of the benefits being derogated, and then considers how the regions have regulated their interventions, particularly as regards activities of guidance and training. It also offers some thoughts on critical elements that have emerged from the interviews with those working in labour services and with workers undergoing retraining and guidance, who enjoy wage support. In the conclusions, the evidence emerging from the analysis is related to more general questions connected to the characteristics of social protection of labour in Italy.
Italy. Internal migrations processes of impoverishment and ways of redefining welfare
Immigrant Workers in Turin: Factors of Vulnerability and Processes of Impoverishment
The article presents the main results of some exploratory research in Turin on immigrant workers and the risks of poverty that they run. It analyses the impact of the economic situation on the living and working conditions of foreigners, showing how in Turin the present economic crisis is compromising the process of social integration in the last decade of many foreigners who had long been in Italy, and were being joined by their families, buying a house, and seeking to set up a stable life. The picture that emerges has many critical points: work conditions have worsened, many jobs have been lost, with people falling back on the black economy, encountering serious difficulties in finding work, and job protection being reduced.
The Impact of the Crisis on Foreign Workers. Returning Migrations in Campania
The article analyses «returning» internal migrations of immigrants in Italy, particularly towards the region of Campania. In the past this region had the dual role of a transit area and a stabilization area, but it is now
becoming the main destination of immigrants who lose their jobs as a result of the crisis. In particular, the essay examines the impact these new internal flows have on social cohesion both in the regions being
left and in the job market in Campania. Interviews with direct witnesses and immigrants reconstruct the processes of skidding and impoverishment in the context of the crisis of the Neapolitan model of survival,
which had previously been able, however unsatisfactorily, to receive even those immigrants in the most desperate conditions.
The Housing Emergency in Rome: Existential Trajectories from Vulnerability to Social Exclusion
Although the right to a house is widely recognized, even today many people in numerous European countries experience conditions of housing deficit, which can create and determine conditions of real social exclusion. This study analyses the particular language of the narratives of a group of interviewees to identify the factors that resist or propel the transition processes from conditions of vulnerability to situations of social exclusion. The analysis identifies terms that are emblematic of the breaking points in the life histories, with particular reference to some fundamental topics (housing, family, work, participation in protest movements).
Local Welfare Systems. Ten Years after Law 328/2000
The article is based on qualitative and ethnographic research and on interventions of consultation and training in various medium-sized districts in two Italian regions (Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy). The analysis makes use both of categories relating to welfare dynamics and references typical of organizational studies. After introducing matters concerning the application of law 328/2000 and describing the main scenarios concerning two regional architectures, it considers the ongoing dynamics in some local welfare systems, bringing out some of their strongly ambivalent aspects.
Features
European Observatory
European Observatory
The first number of the new feature, European Observatory, analyses the response of the European Union to the financial, economic and budgeting crisis that has hit many member countries. Particular attention will be given to four central aspects of the Eu’s recent action, which will influence the future of social policies in the member countries.
Recommended
Italy. First statistical Report on social cohesion
The first Report on social cohesion, published online in December 2010 by Istat, Inps and the Ministry of Employment and Social Policies, consists in collecting a vast number of statistical tables, more than 300, containing data presented in historical series right up to 2009. The data is presented at regional level and, in some significant cases, there are tables comparing Italy with the main European countries. The tables are organized in three sections: Contexts, Family and social cohesion, Expenditure and interventions for social cohesion.
