Comparative Welfare Systems

The course aims to provide students with the theoretical and methodological knowledge, which is necessary to analyse - in a historical-sociological perspective - the characteristics of comparative welfare systems as well as of their institutions and regulatory principles. A particular attention will be paid to the evolution of the European welfare systems and of the Italian one. Then, main welfare systems reforms of the last thirty years will be analysed and discussed, focusing on some policies and sectors such as healthcare and childcare. Moreover, students will have the opportunity to make use of the main conceptual and methodological tools learned in the course, in order to analyse the responses given by the Italian welfare system to the pandemic emergency determined by Covid-19.

At the end of the course, students will have developed the skills that allow him/her both to analyse the characteristics and historical changes of the welfare systems, identifying social, economic and political causes and purposes, and to independently elaborate his/her own interpretation of the observed phenomena. The student will be able to identify main critical issues existing in the welfare systems and in their historical and recent reforms. Students will also develop adequate communication skills, with particular regard to the specific language relating to the theoretical and methodological aspects of the sociology of welfare systems. He/she will be able to properly discuss and argue his/her personal opinion and theses on situations connected to these studies as well as on topics that are proposed by the literature or that are empirically observable. Finally, students will know how to analyse, interpret and autonomously deepen - with the approach of the economic sociology and of the sociology of welfare systems - current social, economic and political phenomena concerning welfare institutions, particularly in the case of Italy and its territorial variations.