10. Care Configurations: Welfare reform to address contemporary care challenges   

Costanzo Ranci (Polytechnic of Milan) 

Ester Gubert (University of Trento) 

Maria Cheshire-Allen (University of Swansea) 

Care is a foundational plank of all welfare regimes connecting families, states, markets and communities. Significant evidence reveals high levels of unmet care needs and unequal access to benefits and services across nations and sub-levels and amongst different population groups such as older people, people with disabilities and children.  

Understanding the complex configurations and interactions between care needs and practice, welfare state structures, and social policy across European contexts requires multi-methodological, and multidisciplinary approaches.   

This stream invites you to present papers on welfare reforms that reflect contemporary responses to the increasing need for complex care, including care for people living with multimorbidity, disabilities and chronic conditions and that support better caring outcomes for all those involved in care.  

Papers that advance theoretical underpinnings of care configurations, the role of welfare states, and methodological contributions in care outcomes analysis are welcome.  Papers can address how different welfare models, implementation practices and outcomes can mediate care responsibilities between families, communities, and markets and its effects on those providing and receiving care.  

Contextual reflections may include a focus on demographic transformations, and/or sociopolitical changes, migration patterns and the role in reshaping care infrastructures in different European welfare states.  Contributions are particularly welcome that present policy innovations that address inequities in care (both in terms of access to care and outcomes of care) and that reflect on welfare reforms that address the gendered and racialised dimensions of care outcomes.