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Dismantling the Feeble Social Protection System of Greece: Consequences of the Crisis and Austerity Measures

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Challenges to European Welfare Systems

Abstract

This chapter examines the Greek social protection system by focusing on the dismantling effects of the economic crisis and the neo-liberal austerity measures. Despite sound empirical findings on pre-existing inadequacies of the Greek social protection system, the austerity measures introduced within the framework of the Memoranda signed with Troika (EU, ECB and IMF) further weakened the capacity of the system to address social risks such as unemployment, inequality and poverty. Against the background of an ageing society, Greece faces a number of challenges in all social policy fields. In the labour market, sky rocketing unemployment levels followed the economic crisis and the deregulation measures imposed while wages were drastically reduced. Pensions, one of the main tenets of the social protection system accounting for more than half of social protection benefits, were drastically reduced affecting the living standards of the elderly. The quasi-universal character of the health system was seriously compromised by drastic cuts leaving public hospitals to manage increased admission rates with reduced budgets and an increasing part of the population uninsured. The other historically underdeveloped social policy areas (i.e. housing, family-child care, long-term care) impose significant burdens on families, the traditional providers of welfare in Southern European countries, in a context of shrinking incomes from work and pensions and imposed flat-rate taxes on house property. These developments taken together resulted in unprecedented levels of poverty and inequality for the Greek population.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In comparing Greece with the EU we often use estimates for the EU-15 since comparable figures are available for a longer period.

  2. 2.

    Life expectancy at birth for the female population was not that favourable being the seventh highest in EU-15.

  3. 3.

    This ratio estimates the number of persons above 65 years per 100 persons of productive age.

  4. 4.

    The Manpower Employment Organization is the respective Public Employment Service in Greece.

  5. 5.

    More specifically, the discretion of the employer in granting marital status and child allowances is enlarged given that collective agreements granting these allowances have to be in place and binding for the particular employer. Otherwise, the allowances are not considered binding.

  6. 6.

    This poverty index was not chosen because of superiority against a plethora of others, but because: (a) it can be easily estimated with available data and (b) it is broadly used by relevant studies improving comparability of results. The index has been strongly criticised as arbitrary and lacking theoretical foundation (Papatheodorou 2008; Papatheodorou and Dafermos 2010).

  7. 7.

    Thus in 2008, before the impact of the economic crisis, almost six out of ten poor in Greece were living in households headed by an employed person (Papatheodorou and Dafermos 2010).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Labor Institute/General Confederation of Greek Labor, Athens, Greece

    Sofia Adam

  2. Department of Social Administration and Political Science, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece

    Christos Papatheodorou

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  1. Sofia Adam
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Correspondence to Sofia Adam .

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  1. Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany

    Klaus Schubert

  2. Fac. de Ciencias Políticas y Sociol, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Paloma de Villota

  3. Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany

    Johanna Kuhlmann

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Adam, S., Papatheodorou, C. (2016). Dismantling the Feeble Social Protection System of Greece: Consequences of the Crisis and Austerity Measures. In: Schubert, K., de Villota, P., Kuhlmann, J. (eds) Challenges to European Welfare Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07680-5_13

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