Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Table of contents -- List of Abbreviations -- Note on contributors -- Acknowledgements -- INTRODUCTION -- PART I: CHILD AND YOUTH POVERTY, RIGHTS AND SOCIAL PROTECTION -- A REVIEW OF CHILD POVERTY APPROACHES: The European Union Experience -- CHILD POVERTY AND INTERGENERATIONAL POVERTY TRANSMISSION IN THE EU: What is the impact of social protection policies and institutions? -- CHILD POVERTY, CHILD RIGHTS IN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES (SIDS): The Case of the Caribbean -- PART II:YOUTH (UN)EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION: TRENDS AND POLICY ISSUES -- UNPACKING THE NEETs OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN: Methodological challenges and surprising results -- "BIOGRAPHICAL DUALISM": Youth employment and poverty patterns in Spain -- YOUTH IN THE GREEK LABOR MARKET -- SOCIAL ENTERPRISES, SOCIAL AND SOLIDARITY ECONOMY, AND YOUTH: What is the role for policy making? -- "GENERATION NOWHERE": The youth in South Africa's informal economy-the case of day laborers and waste pickers -- "INDEPENDENT, YET NOT GROWN UP": Young migrant workers' journeys in post-Mao China -- CONCLUSION.

AbstractThis paper examines the delayed development of the welfare state in Greece and its restructuring since the early 1990s. The emphasis is on factors, such as the rapid shift from pre‐Fordist to post‐Fordist socio‐economic structures, the weak development of contractual relationships and a solidaristic culture, and the extensive reproduction of a statist/clientelist form of social organization strongly linked to a high degree of social fragmentation and a particularistic appropriation of welfare benefits and services, which have hindered the full maturation of social citizenship in Greek society up to now.An expensive trend of social protection in conjunction with some major law reforms in the early 1980s contributed to the development of a "weak form" of universalism. These trends were soon overturned, however, well before Greek society could develop a welfare state, under the pressure of a serious fiscal crisis, low economic growth, increasing international competition, significant demographic changes and a fragile social consensus.Thus, the national health care system has hardly succeeded in establishing universal coverage, the social insurance system has remained highly fragmented and dualist, while policy measures for tackling increasing unemployment, hardship and poverty have been rudimentary. These have caused serious deadlocks and a deep institutional crisis. For this crisis to be overcome, it is essential that a new social balance promoting social solidarity is achieved in the country, while a reinvigorated Social Europe can help enormously in this direction.

This article discusses welfare policy and the trends of development of public expenditure and the social budget in Greece in the post war period. Particular emphasis is given to the expansion of income transfers during the 1980s under the conditions of economic recession. An understanding of the relationship between the state and civil society in Greece is crucial for explaining social policy developments. Our analysis focuses on the strong grip of politics on civil society, which constitutes a major aspect of Greek statism and contributes to an increased fragmentation of social demands and conflicts. The main argument of this article is that the growing size and political weight of the middle classes since the mid-1970s intensified social fragmentation and the contradictions of Greek statism, and made it more difficult to achieve any consensus about social policy aims. Public expenditure and the social budget increased significantly during the 1980s, as a result of presstrre from various middle-class strata, yet no major changes occurred in the logic of the distribution of social provision. Competition among the middle classes for access to political power and the state apparatus intensified, and this put severe limitations on the possibilities of any reforms aimed at redistribution on the basis of social need.