In the eye of the storm…again! Social policy responses to COVID‐19 in Southern Europe

Abstract

This paper aims to describe and discuss the significance of the social policy measures implemented in Southern European countries—Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain—in response to the first wave of COVID‐19. Our analysis covers interventions from 1 March to June 30, 2020. Despite significant differences in how the COVID‐19 pandemic spread—with Italy and Spain experiencing much higher rates of infection and lethality—Southern European economies are among the most hard‐hit—and are likely to find themselves in the eye of the storm, once more. The paper shows that despite differences in how countries have countered the spread of COVID‐19, there are important commonalities in the actions governments took to counteract the economic impact of the pandemic. Foremost efforts were directed at wage subsidy schemes to contain mass job destruction, additional temporary benefits to compensate self‐employed and other non‐standard workers for the loss of earnings; the expansion of unemployment insurance; and finally, the introduction and/or strengthening of schemes to provide support to families with care responsibilities. The scale of the social policy and employment protection response has nevertheless been constrained by the fiscal position of each individual country in the post‐Euro crisis context. We argue that, in the long run, the response capacity of these governments and the social and economic consequences of this crisis will need to be contextualised against the backdrop of the deep and prolonged impact of austerity‐driven measures on public budgets, production and welfare regimes over the last decade.

The Covid-19 Pandemics: why Intersectionality Matters

“…In Italy, Galasso (2020) observed adverse effects on blue collars, low-educated workers and low-income services workers as well. Social distancing implied more significant job losses among ethnic minorities in the United States, especially Hispanics (Béland et al, 2020;Montenovo et al, 2020). Layoffs in the United States exacerbated pre-existing forms of parental status and gender inequality in employment, with a consistent fatherhood premium (Dias et al, 2020).…”

“…In conclusion, the more fragile workers were more likely to stop working and to suffer immediate income loss from the social distancing measures that affected mostly low-skilled services sectors (Blundell et al, 2020;Galasso, 2020). The variance in job losses in terms of demographic characteristics depends on the sorting between different sectors (Montenovo et al, 2020): the affected sectors showed a predominance of youth, minorities, women and low-skilled workers, usually employed with temporary contracts or in precarious working conditions, including solo self-employment.…”

“…Like other more recent pandemics such as the Spanish flu in 1918 or HIV in the '80s, the virus spread more easily among the vulnerable population. Furthermore, the economic consequences of social distancing measures are leading to an increase of inequalities compared to pre-pandemic times (Alfani, 2020;Haase, 2020;Montenovo et al, 2020;Ryan and El Ayadi, 2020) and interact with pre-existing inequalities along dimensions such as gender, age, socioeconomic conditions, geography (Eaves and Al-Hindi, 2020). However, the current debate on the effects of Covid-19 has not sufficiently considered how the intersections between existing structures of inequalities affect the impact of Covid-19 on societies.…”

Mobility Patterns of the Portuguese Population During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study

“…This factor has led to the exhaustion of Portuguese society in general. Observing the pandemic phases in Portugal, the adoption of restrictive measures to ensure a low number of infected people was essential in the first wave [7]. Nevertheless, the speed of taking measures was not so evident in the subsequent waves.…”

“…Portugal is now at the end of its third wave, which started right after the Christmas and New Year celebrations of 2020. In the first wave of COVID-19, in March 2020, the measures adopted managed to contain the spread of the pandemic, and we believe that this is mainly due to the quick response adopted by the government, which approved the lockdown at an early stage of the pandemic [7]. However, the first wave was followed by a second wave that started in September 2020.…”