The need for long-term care (LTC) is projected to increase in all European countries due to the ageing of the population. The number of people aged 65 and older will double in EU-15 countries by 2050 under a pure ageing scenario and will increase by more than 30 per cent under the constant disability scenario. The aim of this paper is to see how different individual characteristics and the LTC systems around Western Europe influence the utilisation of formal LTC (in terms of frequency of services received). The data used from this study come from the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) 2004-2005. We test here the individuals and systems characteristics determining the influence of use professional home-based LTC service (nursing care, domestic home assistance and meals-on-wheals). The frequencies are modelled using a negative binomial regression model. Our findings indicate that utilisation of professional home-based LTC increases significantly with factors like age, education, income and ADL (Activities of Daily Living) score. We found that the utilisation of LTC services is closely linked to the policy priorities, the financing and the organisations of the LTC system. In countries like the Netherlands, where a greater policy emphasis is put on home-based care, the utilisation of home-based LTC is higher compared with most of the other countries in the study.

This article explores changes that took place in long-term care (LTC) policies during the last two decades\ud in six European welfare states. In this regard, it addresses three issues: (1) why reforms took place, (2) the\ud main actors and coalitions driving this process and the institutional mechanisms at work and (3) the main\ud outcomes of reform processes. In order to analyse the development of LTC policies, the article applies\ud theoretical concepts of historical institutionalism. Our interpretation is that institutional change in LTC\ud policy has taken place through a protracted institutional dynamic in which continuity and discontinuity\ud are inextricably linked and where tensions and contradictions have played a crucial role. With regard to\ud outcomes, the article analyses coverage and citizens’ social rights, working conditions in the care sector\ud and trajectories of de-/re-familization of care. The final impact is that the level of universalism has generally\ud increased in Europe, but that in part it has adopted a new form of ‘restricted universalism’, characterized\ud by universal entitlements to LTC benefits constrained by limitations in provision due to financial constraints\ud and budget ceilings

Social and social-spatial inequality are on the rise in the Global North. This has resulted in increasing segmentation between population groups with different social and ethnic backgrounds, and in differentiated access to cultural and material assets. With these changes, the relation between segregation in the educational sphere and segregation in the residential sphere has become crucial for understanding social reproduction and intergenerational social mobility. However, knowledge about this relation is still limited. We argue that the institutional and spatial contexts are key dimensions to consider if we want to expand this knowledge. The institutional context regards the extent of public funding, the degree to which parental choice and/or geographical proximity drive school selection, the role and status of private schools and the religious and pedagogical pluralism of the educational system. The spatial context refers to the geographies of education: the ethnic and social composition of school populations and their reputations; the underlying levels and trends of residential segregation; and the spatial distribution of schools in urban space. In this introduction to the special issue we will address these interrelated dimensions, with reference to theoretical and empirical contributions from the existing body of literature; and with reference to the contributions in this special issue. School segregation emerges from the studies included in this special issue as a relevant issue, differently framed according to the institutional and spatial contexts. A comparative typology will be proposed to illustrate how school segregation is peculiarly shaped in different national and local contexts.

The scientific debate on social investment (SI) is moving from an ideological and normative approach towards a more realistic one. Scholars are paying closer attention to the actual developments in social policy and to the contextual conditions and impacts of SI policies. Considering this, two main issues arise. First, that SI policies are politically feasible and likely to have positive impacts only if specific contextual conditions are met. Second, SI policies were supposed to have a positive impact on both inequalities and economic growth: a strong theoretical assumption that needs to be carefully tested. The Italian case will be used here to illustrate this new perspective and the consequences of the lack of contextual pre-conditions. For this reason, the article is divided into three parts. The first part will present our theoretical argument in the context of the most recent analytical accounts of SI policy in Europe. In particular we will argue that, given the lack of crucial structural preconditions, SI policies may have ambiguous and even unexpected negative impacts on both economic growth and equal opportunities. In the second and third parts, we will present empirical evidence of this ambiguity considering childcare and apprenticeship reforms in Italy. More specifically, based on empirical research carried out in Italy, we want to answer two questions: (1) Why is the Italian welfare state so 'unfriendly' to SI policies? What are the main factors explaining the limited room for SI policies? (2) When an SI approach is promoted in specific policy areas in Italy, what is its social and economic impact? Do these interventions achieve the positive results to be expected according to the SI approach? Finally, the last part synthesises the main arguments and aims to open a critical discussion on the structural pre-conditions of SI policies and the need for further analysis of the political economy contexts in which SI policy develops.

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