Event

Co-sponsored by the Penn-Temple European Studies Colloquium

POVERTY IN EUROPEAN MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES has long been widespread, and policies to combat it scarce. Given its embeddedness in family and community, however, it has also been less marginalized and stigmatized than in many other societies, making it what French sociologist Serge Paugam has termed “integrated poverty.” In this talk, Professor Saraceno argues that changing social and cultural conditions in Mediterranean Europe have transformed the experience of poverty. While it is still widespread, family-centered, and geographically concentrated, cultural reference groups and aspirations have become more de-localized, strengthening the perception of  injustice and misfortune, while family solidarity is increasingly under stress.  At the same time, income support measures have been implemented so that, in order to receive support, the poor must increasingly give up their rights as citizens and adults, agreeing to be told what their needs are and how they should behave. So, while Mediterranean poverty remains distinctive, it increasingly involves the experiences of marginality and denigration typical of other areas.

CHIARA SARACENO is Professor Emerita at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and an Honorary Fellow at the Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin. She is an internationally recognized sociologist who focuses on the dynamics of family change in Italy, as well as comparative gender patterns and social policies regarding the family in Europe and beyond. She also works on poverty and anti-poverty policies in a comparative perspective. Among her recent publications are Il Welfare, il Mulino (2013); I nuovi poveri (2011);Conciliare famiglia e lavoro (with Manuela Naldini) (2011); “Towards an integrated approach for the analysis of gender equity in policies supporting paid work and care responsibilities” (with W. Keck), Demographic Research (2011); “Social inequalities in facing old-age dependency: a bi-generational perspective,”Journal of European Social Policy (2010); and “Can we identify intergenerational policy regimes in Europe?” (with W. Keck), European Societies (2010). Together with J. Lewis and A. Leira, she edited the collection Families and Family Policies(2012).