Out of welfare: functioning of income support in Torino

This paper explores the opportunities provided by longitudinal data regarding income support benefits for able bodied poor in order to understand the functioning of the local social assistance system in Torino. The features of this system, its "selective-categorized" character and the differences from universalistic systems are analyzed. In this framework, the duration of the periods users receive benefits has been studied by means of event-history analysis. The exit probability from welfare is related to socio-demographic characteristics of welfare recipients. In particular, we observe a lower propensity to exit for female headed households and households with children. The exit probability appears to be affected also by labour market conditions, being higher when these are more favourable. The exit rate does not decrease as time elapsed in welfare moven on. We observe the existence of different styles of assistence among the different social services among social services within the city. Difficulties related to the interpretation of the empirical results, given the selective-categorized features of the social assistance system are emphasized. Finally, we discuss some theoretocal issues about the evaluation of income support policies.