Welfare in the seventies: rise or fall?

Interpretations of the seventies often rest on the category of crisis. Moreover, the topic of the welfare state has rarely been systematically addressed in historical studies of this decade. This article has three objectives. First, it seeks to place the historical evolution of the Italian welfare state within this double context in order to understand how analysing Italy's welfare system can contribute to providing a more complete interpretation of this decade. The second objective is to verify to what extent is it true that, in quantitative terms, there was too great an increase in spending. The third objective is to assess whether and to what extent the external factors that led to the restructuring of European welfare systems also affected Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]