Social policies in Italy, a comparative analysis with European countries (2006)

Eurispes wanted to provide an overview of the social promotion strategies adopted in European countries in order to stimulate a debate on the state of social Europe and to promote appropriate political action. Starting from a relative statistical base of the five-year period 1999-2003, mainly based on Eurostat data, Eurispes has constructed estimates and projections for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006, which have made it possible, on the one hand, to have a more precise picture of the current trends and social policy choices of the individual countries for each expenditure sector and, on the other hand, to better compare social policies in the various European countries. Given the economic crisis and the low growth rates that have characterised the years under examination, there has been a growth in Europe in social expenditure in relation to GDP, although not particularly significant. Italy is the country that invests the least in the welfare policy: in 2006, it had a social expenditure of 26.4% of GDP, compared to over 31% in France and Germany. Even the countries that made up the EU-15 spent more overall than Italy (31.5% of GDP). However, it is the United Kingdom that has recorded the greatest increase, going from 26.3% of GDP in 1999 to 28% in 2006.