Southern European welfare regimes and the worsening position of women

The article contributes to the current debate on welfare regimes, bringing together the widespread need for a fourth welfare regime besides Esping-And ersen's well-known typology, and the results of its feminist critique. It i s particularly in the case of Southern European countries that a gendered p oint of view seems crucial, to define the specificities of a different path in developing social protection. On the other hand comparative analyses on gender and welfare state only seldom consider Mediterranean countries. In these countries the concept of subsidiarity formulated for continental-corp oratist welfare regimes has to be modified: the family is still centre stag e, but in the sense that only certain social risks are covered largely by t he welfare state, those against which the family cannot protect itself. On the contrary, the state does not support families' normal functioning as us ually happens in etatist conservative countries. The only form of help on t he parr of the state has so far been to tolerate family strategies which br ing together many 'bread-crumbs' of revenue. Since this relationship betwee n the family and social policies has usually remained invisible, it is high ly probable that today's rationalizing interventions on social provisions m ay have even worse effects on women's condition. Some recent transformation s of Italian welfare state ave analysed as an example of such a danger.