ABSTRACT

This article examines the gender relations upheld by the Italian welfare state, and argues that recent reforms in the area of cash transfers reinforced the male breadwinner-female housekeeper model. It describes recent changes in family allowances, unemployment benefits, and old-age, retirement and survivors’ pensions, and other forms of mean-tested cash transfers for low-income families. It analyses the gender effects of new forms of means-testing, and the implications for the labour supply, participation, and care work within the family. It argues that the misalignment between an old model of gender relations and the reality of women’s activity within and outside the household is the source of commonly acknowledged problems in the Italian welfare system, and should be addressed as such in order to reform it.