Social services and the fourth (limp) leg of the Welfare State in Spain

Abstract

If until the 1980s social services were considered the sixth system of social protection, since the crisis of the 1990s, the debate about this sector has entered the political and academic agenda and overcome the residual approach found until then. This must be related to the inability of the "salaried society" to guarantee full employment and, as a consequence, maintain collective security through employment for all. This paper debates how the weakening of rights based on worker contributions transfers to the social assistance systems the need to confront growing poverty and unemployment. The publication, in 2004, of the White Book, coincides with a broad debate about social services as a universal right with the same legal guarantees as education, healthcare and benefits not based on contributions. The enactment and concretization of the right of citizenship, offer both the possibility to adapt to new social risks as well as the opportunity to overcome the bureaucratic and assistential model that still predominates in Spanish social policies.