Social Needs, Inequality and the Welfare State in Spain: Trends and Prospects

Abstract

Public effort in social expenditure grew in Spam during the 1980s while in otber coun trres there were sizeable cuts. The bistorical delay in the development of social protection and the desire to enlarge its coverage and adequacy helped to narrow the gap between the Spanisb and European welfare states. The results are a reduction of poverty and some improvements towards less inequality. How ever, at the beginning of the 1990s the usual economic restrictions of a pertod of stagnation have led to a deep discussion about possible reductions in the process of uprating benefits, and abandoning the empbasis on universal and egalitarian income maintenance schemes. This has created a favourable ambience for privatiz ation strategies and the expansion of private provisions of pensions or health care. The ideological reply suffered by most contempor ary welfare states has thus arrived also in Spain, although the system has still not reached adulthood. The objective of this article is to examine the main trends in income distri bution and social protection developments in Sparn, and try to foresee the potential inci dence of social expenditure cuts.