Continuity and change in the southern European social model

Abstract

Over the past 20 years or so, the southern European model has undergone substantial change in every way. The changes in industrial relations, wage-setting and employment protection legislation have tended to increase wage and labour flexibility and restrict labour market segmentation. Changes within the welfare state have sought to improve labour force skills, fill gaps in social protection, reduce inequalities in social security and contain social expenditure growth. Yet institutional change has not eliminated the main features of this model: pronounced labour market segmentation and familialism; however, extremely low fertility rates are indicative of the limits of familialism in the near future.T he term "social model" is applied to a mode of social reproduction specific to a national, cross-national or regional context over a given period, in this case southern Europe. This article will examine the employment and the welfare regimes of this model. First, how industrial relations and skills development are organized, wages determined and employment regulated and, second, the roles played by the State, the market and the family in the production and distribution of welfare.In this article it is argued that Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain possess the same or similar mode(s) of social reproduction and together represent a south European social model different from that in other European countries. This argument, which was originally developed in the first half of the 1990s within the framework of comparative socio-economic research, holds at a certain level of abstraction yet is not irrefutable given significant differences between the countries in the group. The literature supporting it emphasizes the common characteristics of the welfare state, the family and labour market * Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens. Email: mkarames@panteion. gr. With acknowledgements and thanks to Lydia Fraile, Paola Villa, Maria do Pilar Gonzales, Josep Banyuls, Annamaria Simonazzi and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their comments.Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.

A comparison of international HRM practices by Indian and European MNEs: evidence from Africa

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Crise econômica e desigualdades nos sistemas de saúde dos países do Sul da Europa

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From anti-social policy to generalised insecurity: The Greek crisis meets the decline of the European Social Model

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