The South European Model of Welfare

In the comparative welfare literature, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese welfare systems are usually included in the conservative model together with France and Germany, even though the first three countries have peculiar characteristics. Our thesis is that there exists a South European model (the Conservative Familistic model), which must be kept separate. In this article, we shall try to explain the reasons of this choice analysing the different mix of Market, Family and State in Italy, Spain and Portugal transversally. The idea is that in the South European model Family plays a major role while State is absolutely residual and does not support families either with in-kind services and financial support.