Public policies towards the family in Italy: an analysis of the evolution of the Italian welfare state and its impact on gender and generations

Italy is part of Mediterranean Model of Welfare as defined by Ferrera in 1996. Since the '80s a significant sociological and political science literature has shown comparative abnormalities in the Italian welfare as part of the more general weaknesses of the political, economic and social system. Over the past three decades, the intensity and the type of social needs were deeply modified in Italy as a consequence of demographic, social and economic changes. The aim of our paper is to understand how and if social policies in the last twenty years have taken into account the evolution of men and women's role in society, both in the private and in the public sphere and if intergenerational redistribution has evolved in a more egalitarian way compared to the past. In order to answer to our research question we will scrutinize the evolution over time, gender and generations of Italian social policies.