The significant departure of southern welfare states from
continental or Bismarckian welfare states lies on the fact that “the schemes of these
countries provide generous protection (at least in principle: e.g. pensions) to the core
sectors of the labour force located within the regular or ’institutional’ labour market”
and “they only provide weak subsidization to those located in the so-called irregular or
non-institutional market (a fairly large occupational sector)” (Ferrera 1996: