ABSTRACT
The fascist period caused a break in some relevant democratisation processes. The crisis of the Italian welfare model became increasingly evident during the Eighties, due to the contemporaneous rise of growing deficit in the State budget. In the early 1990s important legislative measures brought significant changes in the institutional structure of the Italian welfare system. The Italian welfare state model presents, both historically and in its current structure, peculiarities that make a considerable strain to classify into a general typology. The Italian welfare, both in its public and its private components, has developed in a complementary manner relative to this order. This cultural maturity has brought in political pressure for the determination of institutional reforms and new social policies. Globalisation, labour flexibility, de-industrialization, vertical disintegration of economic organizations, second demographic transition and the spreading of new forms of individualism have contributed to redesigning the welfare picture around emerging institutions and regimes, but again with different characteristics in the various countries".
