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Familistic welfare capitalism in crisis: social reproduction and anti-social policy in Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Theodoros Papadopoulos  and
Antonios Roumpakis
Theodoros Papadopoulos
Affiliation:
Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, Claverton Dowrn, The Avenue, 3East, BathBA2 7AY, UK
Antonios Roumpakis*
Affiliation:
Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Helsington, YorkYO10 5DD, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: antonios.roumpakis@york.ac.uk
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Abstract

Familistic welfare capitalism is a model of national political economy prevalent in many regions in the world (Southern Europe, Latin America, and Asia), where the family plays a double role as the key provider of welfare and a key agent in the model's socio-economic and political reproduction. The article offers a new approach to the study this model by adopting an expanded concept of social reproduction to capture its historical evolution, using Greece as a case study. Our empirical analysis of austerity measures on employment and pensions demonstrates, how, in the Greek case, a crisis of social reproduction of the traditional form of familistic welfare capitalism was already underway prior to the well-known sovereign-debt crisis. And further we show how the adoption of austerity measures and pro-market reforms is deepening this crisis by severely undermining the key pillars of familial welfare security while rapidly transforming the model into a political economy of generalised insecurity.

Keywords

familistic welfare capitalismanti-social policyrecommodificationsocial reproductionSouthern EuropeGreece
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , October 2013 , pp. 204 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis

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