The article highlights the different dimensions and meanings that the concept of individualization has assumed in the debate on the changes in welfare: from individualization as a process concerning the nature of the new social risks to individualization as a more general factor of change in contemporary societies, in the dual and ambivalent interpretations that can be derived from it – or as a gradual loss of certainties and individualistic regression, but also as the possibility of liberation for individuals who are more alone than they were in the past, but at the same with more self-determination and freer to make to choose their own destiny. This second interpretation also brings out the possibility of a new paradigm whose aim is to remove the barriers that intervene at every level of individual fulfilment, and in this perspective some social and labour policies are analysed that are connected with empowerment.only subscribers can see the full article