Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History: Welfare state reforms in Southern Europe before the recent debt crisis
23/05/2023 - 23/05/2023 (Seminars)
Bank of Greece, DIESOI
The Historical Archives of the Bank of Greece, in the context of the Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History jointly organised with the Athens University of Economics and Business and Panteion University, invite you to the lecture titled:
“Welfare state reforms in Southern Europe before the recent debt crisis: Social protection reforms in Greece and Portugal between 1990 and 2010” (jointly with Luciano Amaral)
Speaker: Kleoniki Alexopoulou (Panteion University)
A few words on the topic:
During the recent crisis, Portugal and Greece implemented economic adjustment programmes (2010-2018) as a precondition for receiving loans from the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. Both countries are among the poorest in the EU and their welfare states were established in the post-1970s period of democratisation. Τhis presentation first highlights, from a comparative perspective, the impact of social and labour reforms on public spending and development indicators such as inequality, unemployment and migration; second, it analyses the reasons why the results differ for the two cases. The working assumptions pertain to the previous levels of development, exogenous factors (adjustment programs) and endogenous ones (welfare state models) as well as to corrective government interventions. Data drawn from Eurostat show that the welfare state and particularly public health and employment levels were deeply affected in Greece. The consequences for the Portuguese society were milder, possibly because the Portuguese welfare state had been reformed more thoroughly, already in the 1990s, so that it converged more closely with the “continental” social model and was able to absorb the shocks caused by the crisis. To test this hypothesis, the speaker uses a composite index which she built along with Luciano Amaral (professor at Nova University of Lisbon), which measures the degree of “universalism” of welfare systems. On this basis, it is concluded that the systems of both countries gradually became more “universal”, homogeneous and accessible until the crisis broke out; however, the Greek welfare state remained within the model of the European South.
The sessions are held at the Museum of the Bank of Greece, at 3 Amerikis Street, Athens, and are open to the public, without requiring prior registration. The seminar will be conducted in Greek.
The complete programme of upcoming lectures is available on the website of the Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History.
Relevant links:
Poster of the event