The 23rd Annual ESPAnet Conference was held at the University of Milan from August 27th to 29th under the theme “The Welfare State in the 21st Century. On the Edge of a New Era or Back to Basics?”. The conference brought together more than 500 international researchers in the field of social policy

IGOP was widely represented in panels, plenary sessions, and paper presentations, showcasing the diversity and relevance of its ongoing research:

Plenary Sessions and Stream Coordination

  • Margarita León participated in the plenary session “The Southern European Model of Welfare Revisited”, alongside Maurizio Ferrera, Emanuele Ferragina, Amilcar Moreira and Catherine Moury. She also coordinated Stream 7: Redefining Work-Life Balance: Policies and Practice, with Caroline de la Porte and Manuel Alvariño.
  • Daniel Edmiston discussed the book “Families, Welfare States and Resilience Low-Resource Families Navigating Care, Employment and Welfare in Europe” (Mary Daly, 2025) in the Pitch Your Book. He also coordinated Stream 32: New Perspectives on Poverty, Inequality, and In-Work Deprivation.
  • Dani Marinova coordinated Stream 30: Navigating Gender, Identity, and Care: Policies and Politics in European Welfare Systems, alongside Cassandra Engeman, Stephan Köppe and Hannah Zagel.

Research Presentations

  • Dani Marinova and Sheila González presented: “Balancing Care?: The Impact of Spain’s 2021 Equal and Non-Transferable Parental Leave Reform”.
  • David Palomera presented “The Growth Dependence of OECD Pension Systems”.
  • David Palomera, Llorenç Soler and Manuel Alvariño presented “Class Politics and Policy Design: Explaining Political Consensus in Early-Childhood Education and Care Expansion”.
  • Iñigo Aldama, Daniel Edmiston, Violeta Tucci and Joaquín Alcañiz presented “Out of Frame: Investigating Social Rights Access by the Non-Private Household Population in Europe”.
  • Ivan Cerrillo presented “Comparing the Inclusiveness of Social Policy in-Kind Benefits: Using the Family Model Method across Three Cases”.
  • Joaquín Alcañiz and Daniel Edmiston presented “Restricting Support: Conditionality in Unemployment Protection and Its impact on Well-being”.
  • Lara Maestripieri presented “Part-time work and its consequences: a cross-sectional, multilevel analysis of women’s mental health in relationship to work hours and economic insecurity in Europe”.
  • Llorenç Soler and Lara Maestripieri presented “Rethinking Policy Design: A Comparative Systematic Review of the Impact of Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe 2008-2024”.
  • Pedro Manuel Bellón presented “Framing work and life: how parents perceive balance in the shift from breadwinner to dual-earner model”.
  • Violetta Tucci presented: “Beyond Income Poverty: How Disadvantaged Background Shapes Broader Poverty Relations”.

 

The conference was an invaluable opportunity for the exchange of ideas and learning, with notable participation and the high level of the research presented.