Poverty in Italy. Features and Drivers in a European Perspective
by Chiara Saraceno, David Benassi and Enrica Morlicchio, Policy Press, 2020. 

Reviewed by Antonella MEO
University of Turin, Italy

From an early date, Italy was intensely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. As widely documented, it entered the Covid-19 emergency as one of the countries in Europe with an alarming incidence of poverty, high economic and social inequalities, strong imbalances and gaps of a different nature (gender, generational, and territorial, to mention just a few). In a scenario marked by great uncertainty concerning the extent of the repercussions of the epidemic on employment and the loss of productive capacity, it is entirely plausible to imagine an amplification of inequalities among individuals, families and territories, and processes of impoverishment of the most vulnerable part of the population. The situation is even more worrying because the country had already suffered the increase in the poverty rate since the 2008 financial crisis even more than other European countries, due to the structural weakness of the Italian welfare state and the historically ineffective anti-poverty policies. In the historical series since 2005, Italy recorded a record number of individuals below the absolute poverty line in 2017, a sign of drastic deterioration in living conditions.

In the current scenario, it is important to investigate the impact of the epidemic.  The unprecedented emergency due to the new Coronavirus can be seen as an additional stress test, which enables one to understand how institutions, markets and society all work and change. However, the effects of the Covid crisis will be affected by the long-term structural features of the Italian economy and society.

By integrating effectively theoretical and empirical tools, this book represents a crucial contribution to the understanding of poverty in Italy. It provides in-depth analysis that explores how forced familialism, unbalanced gender arrangements, territorial cleavages and slow growth have rendered Italy vulnerable to the 2008 financial crisis and, now, to the new crisis.

The book analyses the Italian case as a specific example of a poverty pattern. More precisely, the authors have developed the concept of a poverty regime and placed it within an articulated and sturdy conceptual framework, which proves useful in examining the characteristics and evolution of poverty in other contexts, beyond the Italian case. 

A poverty regime is defined as “a specific combination of labour market conditions, the balance between public and private (family) responsibility in buffering against social risks, a gender division of labour within families and within society, and (gendered) social norms and cultural values” (p.1).  The regime approach guides a wide-ranging analysis, supported by recourse to national and international data, which focuses not on poverty in the strict sense but on its social construction through the mechanisms of its institutional management and specific modes of social regulation.

There are three main merits of the volume: taking a comparative, long-term, and structural perspective. The authors have elaborated a typology of the European contemporary poverty regimes, revisiting the analyses of Polanyi, Esping-Andersen, Gallie and Paugam, Castel, and Paugam. Poverty regimes are conceived as the outcome of specific patterns of interdependence (and misalignment) among four areas of social regulation: family and welfare arrangements, the role of non-governmental organizations and charities, and the functioning of both the economy and labour market. 

The authors argue that the incidence of poverty and its composition in every regime depend on the specific combination and interaction of these factors over time and show how poverty regimes differ across European countries, according to the efficacy of their social regulation patterns in protecting against poverty. 

Comparing Italy with other European countries, they have outlined the peculiar features of its poverty regime: labour market segmentation and high territorial differentiation in economic development, a strong gender division of labour, a strong geographic concentration of poverty and its high persistence, low employment of women and high youth unemployment, high incidence of the working poor and children’s poverty, a weak system of social protection, a fragmented unemployment protection system, inadequate child-linked social transfers, and the importance of charities and NGOs.

The book provides the analytical toolbox to understand how poverty is produced and reproduced over the long term. Cultivating a long-term perspective, it allows one to focus on the transformations of the phenomenon in Italy, from Italian unification in the mid-19th century to the years closest to us. It traces the historical roots of the Italian poverty regime, documenting the reasons for high and persistent levels of poverty and the social groups most at risk of being poor, thus showing their continuity and changes. Living in the South, being the working poor and living in a large household, have remained persistent risk factors over time. The working poor turn out to be a constant of Italian poverty, even if their characteristics have changed. 

An interesting in-depth insight concerns three particularly vulnerable social groups, partly overlapping: the working poor, and children and migrants, are the most affected by the 2008 crisis and represent the exemplary victims of the Italian welfare regime. The theme of the ambivalent role of the Italian family with respect to poverty is also illuminating, not only as a protective factor but also as a cause of poverty. Arguing about the “costs” (or downsides) of family solidarity, the authors have provided elements to revise the category of “integrated poverty” to which Paugam (2005) referred to Italy.

A broad perspective guides the analysis, not only temporally but also spatially. It is articulated on several levels, from the international one, to the national and regional ones, as well as down to the municipal level. In fact, urban poverty is addressed by investigating its characteristics, specific patterns of segregation and deprivation, in the 10 main Italian cities.

The book closes with a final chapter dedicated to the reconstruction of policies for combating poverty in Italy and to the recent introduction of a national minimum income scheme, although it is primarily focused on the social construction of poverty with a “regime approach”.

The book is of great interest to scholars and students interested in poverty and inequality, social policy regimes, and comparative social policy research.