This article illustrates how the implementation of 'interstitial' innovation in welfare policy can be hampered by resistance to change on the part of its intended beneficiaries by means of a case study of a policy innovation in long-term care in Italy: the Home Care Premium (HCP) programme. In a policy area characterised by longstanding institutional inertia, HCP represents an innovative programme which provides a generous, conditional cash-for-care benefit to encourage the regular employment of in-house care assistants. However, the implementation of the scheme was hampered by high non-take up (NTU) rates, i.e. the percentage of beneficiaries who did not claim the cash-for-care benefit for which they were eligible. The article uses a 'mixed method' approach to show how high NTU rates can be explained by individually 'situated' decisions taken by the intended beneficiaries based on cost-benefit evaluations that are deeply rooted in social attitudes and adaptive practices shaped by the existing institutional context. The study also shows how the policy design of the programme partially failed to manage the institutional complementarity of different welfare programs effectively, thus weakening the capacity of this 'interstitial' policy to bring about policy innovation. The results of the case study may therefore be of interest to scholars interested in policy change and the role played by beneficiaries in policy implementation.

Aging and changes in family arrangements and female employment have brought about important policy developments in long-term care (LTC). Southern European countries have relied for a long time on family care and residual social care for the dependent elderly.Two paradigmatic cases, Italy and Spain, have shown two apparently different trends during the last 15 years: while in Italy, reforms seem to have been persistently blocked, in Spain, an ambitious reform has fallen short of expectations.Based on data on services and institutional arrangements, the article shows that a complex and inconsistent allocation of responsibilities across government levels, a sort of "vicious layering" of multilevel governance, may be playing a key role in this situation. The article discusses the dysfunctional effects of such arrangements, namely territorial inequalities, cost-shifting between government levels and towards users, and misallocation of resources.We suggest that the development and reform of LTC in Southern European countries must address these problems if they want to avoid getting marooned by a complex network of vetoes and resource allocation problems.

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This paper investigates the potential trade‐offs between extension of coverage and adequate generosity in cash‐for‐care (CfC) programmes in six European countries (Austria, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain), which are characterised by different configurations of CfC programmes. Building on an empirical analysis of the eligibility rules, of the regulation applied to classify beneficiaries according to their level of dependency, and the ways CfC benefits are distributed among them, it becomes clear that these programmes differ substantially in terms of coverage and generosity. Such differences reflect the variety of ways by which universalism, selectivity, and adequacy are built up together throughout Europe.

Care marketization has generally supported ethnicization of care work in many countries. While economic and institutional theories have explained how migrants have been included as functional workers, the social inclusion of them in the hosting societies has been largely neglected. Focusing on the role of ideas and public discourse, this article considers through a content analysis of newspaper articles how the role of migrant care workers has been the object of public discussion in two countries characterized by care marketization: Italy and the United Kingdom. It shows how ethnicized care markets have been differently legitimized through distinct social and cultural dynamics