Il sistema di welfare

How to combat inequalities and their negative effects on individuals’ life chances? How to guarantee security, protection and wellbeing by respecting individual differences? Which are the bases on which people build up the rights to such guarantees? And who has the responsibility for this? The welfare system is the most immediate and concise answer to these questions. But concise does not mean easy. What actually is a welfare system? Which are its pillars, its main actors and its purposes? Which are the inequalities it aims to tackle? By adopting a historical perspective and a comparative approach, the chapter aims to answer these questions.