In recent decades, and particularly since the financial crisis, continental Europe has seen an increasing gap between those workers who have well-protected, good-paying jobs with strong benefits and those who work lower-quality, nonstandard jobs, or who have no regular work at all. This situation would seem to call for increased spending on the social safety net, yet governments throughout the region have instead been turning to austerity. In the face of that reality, the options for helping disadvantaged workers are to extend coverage through re-allocating the benefits given to higher-level workers, maintain the benefits of the well-off as the number of outsiders continues to grow, or simply ignore the problem. This book asks why different nations have taken different tacks in handling-or not handling-this problem.

Anthony Kevins is an Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, affiliated with the UNIWEL research project. He received his Ph.D. from McGill University in 2014.

1. Struggling with Persistent GapsStudying the Welfare StateMethodologyConclusion2. A Tale of Two RMIsContextualising the CasesExplaining Benefit ReformPolitics and the RMIsSouthern European Characteristics and Public PressureConclusion3. Public Attitudes toward the Unemployed in Continental, Southern Europe, and BeyondExtending the ComparisonExamining Public OpinionConclusion4. Southern European Characteristics in the Broader ContextThe ModelsFindingsConclusion5. Bismarck, Beveridge, and Making the TransitionContextualising the CasesBeveridge versus BismarckExplaining Healthcare ReformItalian AdvancementsStaying the Course in FranceConclusion6. Healthcare Reform and Public Opinion in Continental and Southern EuropeExtending the ComparisonExamining Public OpinionConclusion7. Examining Healthcare Coverage across the OECDThe ModelsFindingsConclusion8. Rectifying Coverage GapsBibliographyAppendix: A Brief Methodological Note