The 16th ESPAnet Italy Conference 2023 will be hosted by the University of Milan – Department of Social and Political Sciences
September 13-15 2023
The Conference includes parallel thematic sessions, round-tables and plenaries as well.
Guest speakers: Maurizio Ferrera, Elena Granaglia, Ana Guillen, Anton Hemerijck, Manos Matsaganis, Bruno Palier, Chiara Saraceno, Waltraud Schelkle.
Ready to join us?
Read the Call for Session below. Looking forward to receiving your session proposals (250-300 words) by February 5, 2023!
Submission Address: espanetmilano23@gmail.com
Notification about accepted session proposals by February 28, 2023
CALL for Sessions
Over the last half century, slow moving structural transformations, recurrent multidimensional crises, labour market reforms and, last but not least, the “green” and “digital” transitions have been affecting the social protection systems built during the Trente Glorieuses (1945-1975).
In order to tackle such challenges, welfare systems have been deeply restructured along different dimensions: functional, by allocating resources to diverse social protection sectors; distributive, with the aim to protect the groups either no protected or mostly exposed to “new social risks”; politico-institutional, with some actors playing a more prominent role in the field of welfare both along the vertical axis – the European Union, as well as regions and municipalities – and the horizontal axis – third sector “not-for-profit” organizations, charities, trade unions, firms and employers’ organizations, but also banking and insurance companies and associations.
Welfare systems are thus currently in transition towards new, more complex and fragmented configurations, which should anyhow guarantee social cohesion and social inclusion in the next decades, in a context characterized by slower economic growth, global instability as well as growing social insecurity and vulnerability.
Against such backdrop, the conference aims at stimulating broad discussion and reflection on the effectiveness of these highly complex and fragmented “welfare systems in transition” in finding a difficult balance between the key objective of equity and the maintenance of economic-financial, but also social, political and environmental sustainability.
We therefore welcome session proposals on – among others – the following subjects:
• Healthcare policies
• Pension policies
• Social assistance policies
• Family and reconciliation policies
• Anti-poverty policies
• Housing policies
• Active ageing and long term care policies
• Gender policies
• Labour market and employment policies
• Wage policies
• Immigration
• The politics of social and employment policies
• “Second welfare”: the role of non-public actors in social protection
• Decentralization and (re-)centralization: the role of subnational level of government in welfare policies
• Social policy in the EU: a multilevel perspective
• Green transition, employment and social policies
• Digital transition, employment and social policies
• Welfare and territorial inequalities
• Precariousness, vulnerability and social policies
• Design and assessment of services and policies
• The Italian welfare system between path dependency and change
• Welfare regimes in transition: a comparative perspective