Recent decades have seen a growing sophistication in the study of welfare states and social policy in general. This greater depth has come about as a result of more complex theorization; richer case study analysis; and the inclusion of additional sources of provision such as not-for-profit, market-based, informal and family welfare. The fields of study open to social scientists in this arena have also expanded to include issues such as globalization, gender, immigration and children, while benchmarking and performance monitoring within countries have afforded huge quantities of new data that allow for much more detailed cross-national comparative analysis.

There is intense interest in the social well-being and the legal and economic status of families, women and children in the welfare state, and this volume deals with the issues from a unique 'welfare regime' perspective. Casting aside the generally held assumption that national welfare regimes have common characteristics, this book makes the case that the Mediterranean states share a unique set of commonalities. In doing so, it offers a close comparative analysis of policies towards children, families and gender in these nations-Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Israel. Beginning with an overview of these countries' welfare states and a discussion of the issues of children, families and gender in general terms, the volume then provides readers at both undergraduate and graduate level with detailed country-by-country comparative studies of these issues, authored by leading experts from the nations themselves.

Key Concepts.- Investing in Children? Changes in Policies Concerning Children and Families in European Countries.- Understanding Gender Economic Inequality Across Welfare Regimes.- Neighborhoods and Families.- Setting the Scene.- Exploring the Extended Family of Mediterranean Welfare States, or: Did Beveridge and Bismarck Take a Mediterranean Cruise Together?.- Country Studies.- Children, Gender and Families in the Italian Welfare State.- The Erosion of "Familism" in the Spanish Welfare State: Childcare Policy Since 1975.- Children, Families and Women in the Israeli State: 1880s-2008.- Gender, Family and Children at the Crossroads of Social Policy Reform in Turkey: Alternating Between Familialism and Individualism.- Gender, Children and Families in the Greek Welfare State.- A Cross-National Comparison.- Is There a "Mediterranean Welfare State"? A Country-Level Analysis.

* John Gal is professor of social policy at the Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His fields of interest include social policy in Israel and in a comparative perspective, and the link between war and welfare. Recent books include a study on income maintenance in Israel, a study of the history of unemployment policy in Israel and Professional Ideologies and Preferences in Social Work: A Global Study with Idit Weiss and John Dixon. His e-mail address is: msjgsw@mscc.huji.ac.il.

* Mimi Ajzenstadt is a professor at the Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare and at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests lie in the areas of sociology of law, qualitative research methods and in the areas of social policy and the welfare state. She has examined the establishment and operation of social policy towards women in the Israeli welfare state, and has analyzed the history of the social construction of attitudes towards juvenile delinquency in the Jewish community in pre-State Palestine and in the State of Israel. Her articles were published in journals such as: British Journal of Criminology, Social Problems, Social Policy , Symbolic Interaction, Qualitative Sociology and Theoretical Criminology.