Social assistance dynamics in Europe

Chiara Saraceno is Professor of Sociology at the University of Torino, Italy. She has extensive research experience in family, gender and poverty issues and in social policy. A member of the former EU Observatory on Policies to Combat Social Exclusion, she is the chair of the Social Exclusion Commission in Italy.

• Contents: Introduction: exploring social assistance dynamics ~ Chiara Saraceno; Cities as local systems ~ Enzo Mingione, Marco Oberti and José Pereirinha; Income support measures for the poor in European cities ~ Yves Bonny and Nicoletta Bosco; Why some people are more likely to be on social assistance than others ~ Marisol Garcia and Yuri Kazepov; Paths through (and out of) social assistance ~ Bjorn Gustafsson, Rolf Müller, Nicola Negri and Wolfgang Voges; Deconstructing the myth of welfare dependence ~ Chiara Saraceno.

"... a remarkable piece of academic work. It provides, combines and analyses data from a variety of sources in a way that is rarely seen in comparative projects: historical data, in-depth qualitative interviews with recipients of social assistance, detailed information at the local and country level and lastly data on social assistance dynamics from eight cities in five European countries. The book is so rich, in methodological approaches, in data, in interpretations and theoretical insights, that a short review can hardly pay it full justice." International Journal of Social Welfare